Early Life and Education
Born in Georgetown, Penang, Karpal Singh was the son of watchman and part-time herdsman Ram Singh. Ram had moved from India to Penang in 1921. Karpal's ancestors were wheat farmers from the village of Samna Pind, near Amritsar, in the Punjab region. He visited the village in 1963 while attending university and in 1974 when his father was killed in an accident there.
Karpal studied at St. Xavier's Institution. He met his wife, Gurmit Kaur, while herding his father's cows.
He obtained his Bachelor of Laws from the University of Singapore. During his time there, he also served as president of the student's union. He was barred from the hostel for protesting against the university's decision to mandate the "certificate of political suitability" for enrolling students. Karpal said he took seven years to graduate, admitting that he was "playful" and "didn’t attend lectures." After failing his final year courses, the dean, made him sit at the front of the class, and according to Karpal, "I couldn’t play the fool any more and I passed my exams accordingly!"
Read more about this topic: Karpal Singh
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)