The couple who wants to adopt Narendra Modi

Yogendra Pal Singh and Atar Kali are residents of Patla village in Uttar Pradesh

Yogender Pal Singh doesn’t look a day older than 70. He will turn 80 later this year, but locals in Patla, a verdant village overlooking the Hindon in Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) Modinagar, tell me that he works with the same verve he did 20 years ago. Singh roams around with a walking stick and is seemingly accompanied by the aura of a stern grandfather.

Thankfully, he is anything but. 

He smiles through his meetings with villagers, listening to their problems patiently. Singh was chairman of the local municipal body for a decade, finally retiring from administrative life almost 10 years