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?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → with intense fear and sensory detail
The narrator froze, felt panic grip his chest, was trembling, and his heart was "pounding louder than the temple bells". These show intense fear. Sensory detail means details of sight, sound and touch: the coiled serpent, its beady eyes, Rohan's whisper and his own shallow breath.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: with amusement and detachment — Incorrect. Contradicted: detachment means standing apart without feeling involved. The narrator was terrified, not amused or detached.
Option 2: with poetic admiration for nature — Incorrect. Wrong part of the passage: the admiring description of nature (the orchard, the orange sky) comes before the encounter; the snake itself fills him with panic, not admiration.
Option 4: with anger at himself for being reckless — Incorrect. Not mentioned: reckless means acting without thinking of danger. The narrator never blames himself; he recalls the evening with "inexplicable joy".