Read the given passage and answer the four questions that follow:-

I still remember the summers of my childhood, when the air in our ancestral village carried the scent of ripening mangoes. Our orchard, an expanse of towering trees with branches heavy with fruit, was my sanctuary. The afternoons were spent sprawled on a charpoy under the largest tree, listening to my grandmother's tales of kings and sages, while the cicadas hummed a lazy tune. One evening, when the sky blushed orange, my cousin Rohan and I dared each other to climb the ancient mango tree-the one, no one had scaled in years. "It's cursed," the elders warned, "a snake guards its highest branches." But we were twelve, and fear was something we laughed at. With scraped knees and racing hearts, we ascended, our fingers sticky with the sweetness of half- eaten mangoes.

Then, suddenly, I froze. Just inches from my hand, nestled between two branches, lay a coiled serpent, its beady eyes fixed upon me. Panic gripped my chest, my breath shallow. "Don't move," Rohan whispered. Trembling, I heeded his words, inching backward ever so slowly. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I bolted, my heart pounding louder than the temple bells at dusk.

We never climbed that tree again. But to this day, whenever I taste a mango, I remember that evening-the thrill, the terror, and the inexplicable joy of childhood.

How does the narrator describe his encounter with the snake?

with intense fear and sensory detail

The correct answer is Option (3) → with intense fear and sensory detail

The description of the encounter focuses heavily on the narrator's overwhelming emotional and physical reaction:

• Intense Fear: Phrases like "Panic gripped my chest," "my breath shallow," "Trembling," and "my heart pounding louder than the temple bells at dusk" convey extreme terror.

• Sensory Detail: The snake is described visually as a "coiled serpent, its beady eyes fixed upon me," providing a vivid and frightening sensory image. The description also mentions the physical sensation of "scraped knees" and "fingers sticky with the sweetness of half-eaten mangoes" just before the encounter, grounding the moment in vivid detail.