Karpal Singh may have come across as a fierce lawyer and politician who invoked fear in others, but a former university mate knows him as someone with a zany sense of humour.

Former Penang DAP deputy chairperson Gooi Hock Seng, who was with Karpal at the University of Malaya in Singapore in the 1960s, remembers him as a "fierce ragger".

"He was our senior. We were freshies and got bullied by him. Once during orientation week, when a few of us were travelling on the same train with Karpal, he ragged us from Penang to Singapore," Gooi recalled with a laugh.

"He made us do many crazy things which I cannot even mention here. The ragging continued for days but when it was over, we got to rag the seniors. I can tell you that all the seniors ran away except for Karpal.”

Gooi, who quit the DAP in 1998 and later joined PKR, said Karpal sportingly allowed the freshies to rag him in return.

"We pulled his beard, we took off his turban and pulled his hair ...," Gooi recounted.

"We laugh when we think of it now. Through the years we became good friends. He used to come to my house on a super bike and my mother would say 'Chun lai liao' (the ship has arrived).”

( Chun is ‘ship’ in Hokkien and Karpal’s name sounds like the Malay word for ‘ship’.)

Karpal, Gooi and another former DAP stalwart Teoh Teik Huat (right) went on to set up the Dato Keramat division in 1972.

Karpal became the chairperson, while Gooi was the secretary and Teoh the organising secretary.

The Dato Keramat state seat is currently held by Karpal's eldest son, Jagdeep Singh Deo.

Teoh said Karpal was "a man who called a spade a spade ... He didn't twist words or manoeuvre to gain political mileage".

Penang PRM chief Gary Nair said Karpal hated “political frogs” and supported his decision not to join PKR, when the party merged with it in 2002.

"He said ‘Stay as you are, don't change, this is your identity, stay true to yourself’," said Nair, who had been close friends with Karpal for 35 years.

‘Difficult times’

Former DAP secretary-general and ex-Kota Melaka MP Kerk Kim Hock said Karpal is a Malaysian hero and a legend whose contributions will be forever remembered.

"Do not worry, for the DAP will not compromise on the party's founding principles and will continue to carry on Karpal's work. For example, in recent years, one of his main (worries) was (over the possibility that) hudud law or the Islamic state (would be implemented," he said.

Karpal’s former employees, who worked at his legal office in Kuala Lumpur in the 1980s, recalled the “most difficult times” the lawyer went through.

"Those were days when Karpal was very active in politics and was detained at the Kamunting Detention Centre in Taiping for almost two years," Muhammad Hazwan Shah Abdullah said.

"We continued to run his legal firm. We sometimes felt scared but he always made us feel confident again. We learnt a lot from him.”

A former clerk, who only wanted to be named as Kwan, said he had worked for Karpal for almost 10 years.

He remembers Karpal as a "wonderful boss who always smiling and gentle, even when very tired - he never scolded or took out his problems on us".