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The given sentence is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits among the options 1, 2, 3, or 4 indicated in the paragraph.
Sentence- The region’s Western customers found it hard to believe that Dhaka muslin could possibly have been made by human hands - there were rumour that it was woven by mermaids, fairies and even ghosts.
Once upon the silty banks of the Meghna River, a miracle was spun — a fabric so light it was called “baft-hawa”, or woven air. This was Dhaka Muslin — the world’s most coveted cloth. ____(1)____. Handspun from a rare cotton called Phuti Karpas, found nowhere else on Earth, and woven with a 16-step sacred ritual — beginning with cleaning the cotton using the teeth of a river catfish! ____(2)____. Every spring, the maple-like leaves pushed up through the grey, silty soil to produce a single daffodil yellow flower twice a year, which gave way to a snowy floret of cotton fibres. ____(3)____. Spun at dawn on boats by sharp-eyed young women, its threads were so fine the elderly could barely see them. Motifs of wildflowers, river breeze, and soul were etched into each piece — some so light, a 91-metre bolt could pass through a ring, or a 60' length fit inside a snuffbox. It draped Greek goddesses, Roman nobles, Mughal emperors, and European aristocrats. Marie Antoinette, Empress Joséphine — even Jane Austen adored its floating grace. ____(4)____.
The Sentence mentions "the region's Western customers," implying that the region in question is not in the West. It follows that the area being mentioned must be Dhaka and the surrounding places where the Muslin was produced and sold. The sentence before Blank-4 mentions varied places, and therefore, the Sentence cannot be placed in Blank-4. Starting from "Handspun from a rare cotton...", until ".... a 60' length fit inside a snuffbox," the passage discusses how the Dhaka Muslin was made. Placing the Sentence in between would disrupt the flow of the paragraph and the surrounding context. Blank-1 is the most suitable choice, since the Sentence can then follow the preceding mentions of "silty banks of Meghna river" and Dhaka itself. Option B is the correct answer.
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