Read the poem and answer the questions given below it.
The Morning Fish Market
The town is still asleep when they arrive,
their baskets heavy from the early van.
They take their places on the wet cement:
a crate, a knife, a scale, a dented pan.
Rani sorts the prawns in heaps of ten.
Lata breaks the ice with a wooden pin.
Silver sardines slide across the slab,
and Mariamma dresses them, fin by fin.
By seven the market fills. The buyers come
with cloth bags and a frown at every rate.
They poke a gill and argue for a rupee.
The women laugh, and add one to the weight.
By ten the baskets hold just melting ice.
They hose the floor and count the coins again,
then stretch their aching backs, tie up their hair,
and walk home, side by side, down the sunlit lane.
What is the central idea of the poem?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → the hard, skilled work that the fisherwomen share through a long morning
The poem follows three fisherwomen from before dawn till ten o’clock.
- They arrive when “the town is still asleep” and leave with “aching backs”. The work is hard and long.
- Rani sorts prawns “in heaps of ten” and Mariamma cleans the fish “fin by fin”. Each one knows her job well.
- They work together and walk home “side by side”. The work is shared.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: the noisy bargaining between buyers and sellers at a market — Incorrect. Too narrow: Only the third stanza shows the buyers arguing over the price.
Option 2: the poor earnings of women who sell fish for a living — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The women “count the coins again”, but the poem never says how much they earn.
Option 3: the freshness and variety of the fish sold in a small town — Incorrect. Wrong focus: Prawns and sardines are named, but the poem is about the women who sell them.