Born on September 17, 1950 in Vadnagar, 100km from Ahmedabad Narendra Modi is the third child of Damodardas Modi and Hiraben.
He studied in B N High School, a co-educational Gujarati-medium institution, where teachers remember him as an average student with a keen interest in debating and theatre.
Known as ND to his classmates, he was a strong swimmer and active in NCC
His father ran a tea stall and the young Modi would take it in a kettle to sell it to passengers at Vadnagar railway station. At 15, he is said to have volunteered to serve tea to soldiers in transit during the Indo-Pak war of 1965. In 1967, he was involved in flood relief
His parents arranged his marriage to Jashodaben at the age of 17 but he never lived with her as he was drawn to the life of an RSS pracharak. The first time he acknowledged the existence of his wife, now a retired school teacher, was in April 2014
Author of 'Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times' Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay writes that Modi left home at the age of 17 and roamed the hills of Kumaon. He describes 1967 to 1971 as "somewhat mysterious" years in Modi's life
In RSS, Modi's early responsibilities included making tea, breakfast and snacks for seniors. He swept and cleaned a building with eight to ten rooms. His contemporaries recall how he often missed morning shakhas because he slept late, wore shortsleeved kurtas when others wore long-sleeved ones and had a reputation as a superb organizer
Modi says he rises at 5am every day to do yoga and meditate. He reads the news for 15 minutes on his iPad. He's a vegetarian and a teetotaler. He was among the first Indian politicians to own a digital diary, hasn't taken a holiday in 12 years and lives alone
He is said to have been well-groomed from childhood. His style statement now is short kurtas with hand-tailored button holes. He favours Swiss watches and Montblanc pens
He kept a diary as a young man and published it later. He's a regular writer and tweets often. He's also a poet, whose works centre on the themes of nature and patriotism.
From m.economictimes.com
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