Karpal portrayed as wounded, but brave, tiger in biography
Any individual confronted by a life-changing, debilitating situation as Karpal Singh was following a road accident in 2005 would have withdrawn from public life.
But not Karpal.
He persevered, contested in two general elections in 2008 and 2013 and continued taking up public issues in and outside the legislature.
Despite being wheelchair-bound, the lawyer with more than 40 years' experience criss-crossed the country to fight legal battles in the courts.
"I have to keep doing what I love most – politics and law – to sustain me or else life has no meaning," Karpal had once said while waiting for a court case to begin.
Life as he knew it came to a devastating halt in the back seat of a taxi in the early hours of January 29, 2005 when a car driven by a banker ploughed into the public vehicle.
The impact left the veteran lawyer-politician, then 64, who was not wearing a seat belt at the time, consigned to a lifetime of pain and immobility as a tetraplegic.
In a 325-page biography of Karpal by New Zealand journalist Tim Donoghue, titled "Karpal: Tiger of Jelutong", his many friends and foes related how he was forced to lie down and undergo numerous operations.
After a year of intensive treatment, during which many good friends with the best intentions said he would have been better off dead, he was wheeled back into the game of life as a newly created man.
Donoghue said the wounded tiger emerged as a more dangerous and calculating one.
"He had nothing to lose, except his life and feared no one as he went about his work in Malaysia's courts and Parliament," Donoghue said.
Karpal's new condition required him to be patient, and he slowly came to accept that he would be totally dependent on others for even the most basics of life.
In the book launched last year, Donoghue also recounted how Karpal had once pointed out to him a simple rain tree across the road from his house.
"This particular tree had at one stage been chopped right back but now vibrant branches are growing from it. The tree remained a source of inspiration for Karpal," he said.
Donoghue said such was Karpal's way of letting those around him know that the accident had cut him back to the basic needs of life.
It was his way of saying he knew he had to start again, to adapt to a new kind of existence in a wheelchair.
The book also revealed that Karpal's father Ram Singh Deo was also killed instantly in a tail-end collision during a visit to Amritsar, India, on May 18, 1974.
The high seat of his rickshaw was hit by an out-of-control car and he was thrown head first onto the pavement of a railway bridge.
Early today, Karpal, the MP for Bukit Gelugor, died in an accident when the car he was travelling in collided with a five-tonne lorry near Gua Tempurung on the North-South Expressway.
Karpal, who would have turned 74 on June 28, was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Penang to attend a court hearing scheduled for this morning.
The impact of the crash which took place about 1am killed the prominent lawyer and his personal assistant, Michael Cornelious, on the spot. Karpal's son, Ramkarpal, and the car's driver, C. Selvam, were injured.
Karpal's Indonesian domestic helper was also injured and is in critical condition at Ipoh Hospital. – April 17, 2014
