Narendra Modi, India's new prime minister, is an outsider among the old guard Delhi elite
India has high expectations of Narendra Modi, the 'provincial nobody' who has journeyed from his family's stall to the country's seat of power
Narendra Modi's journey to the front step of the prime minister's office in the heart of New Delhi has been long - and unlikely.
Born in a town in Gujarat, the western state two hours' flight from the capital, Modi comes from a caste near the bottom of the Indian social hierarchy.
His parents were poor and conservative and the future prime minister helped out on the family tea stall after school.
At about the age of 10 he started attending meetings of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a vast and influential Hindu revivalist conservative movement that has been banned three times in India. He joined formally only at a later date.
His first job for the RSS involved sweeping for a senior official. Later assigned to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - the affiliated but independent political party - Modi forged his own path, ousting opponents one by one until he was appointed chief minister of Gujarat in 2001.
Of course Modi hates Muslims. But as prime minister, can he really afford to show it?
He went on to win three elections there, largely rooted in the consistent economic growth in the state, and these victories have given him a platform from which to outflank the entrenched old guard of the BJP itself.