Before Malaysia knew Mahathir and Hasmah

By the time Malaysia came to know Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Dr Hasmah Ali, they were already a familiar pair.

They appeared together at official functions, travelled together and, through the decades, became almost inseparable in the public imagination.

But there was another version of them, from a time when neither had any idea what lay ahead.

They were two young medical students in Singapore, still learning each other’s habits, finding out what could annoy them and, more importantly, discovering that an argument did not have to be the end of anything.

Hasmah once recalled that they fought during their courtship. They would then go out for a meal and make up.

That small detail says rather more about their marriage than the grander stories that came later.

Mahathir was particular about time. Hasmah was not. When they were younger, her tendency to take her time getting ready could test his patience.

Eventually, he accepted that she was unlikely to change. If she was going to be late, she was going to be late.

For Mahathir, that became part of what made a marriage last: accepting that the person you married is not going to become somebody else simply because you would prefer it.

He called it tolerance.

It sounds almost too practical to describe a 70-year love story, but perhaps that was their way of making love endure.

There was affection, certainly, but also humour, patience and the willingness to let the other person remain themselves.

The romance had begun much earlier, in 1947, when they arrived at King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore. There were only seven Malay students and Hasmah was the only woman.

Mahathir remembered the other young men competing to help carry her books to lectures. He joined them, but his interest went beyond being helpful. He wanted to be her friend.

Then she failed a paper and needed help with her studies. Mahathir, the “distinction kid”, offered to give her tuition.

She accepted, partly because it was free.

Years later, Mahathir admitted that the arrangement gave him an advantage over the other five men trying to get close to her.

It was an unusual courtship, but it worked.

In 1949, he told her he loved her. Decades later, when Hasmah was asked about the most romantic thing her husband had ever done, that was the moment she remembered.

Not a grand gesture from their years in public life.

That young man telling her he loved her.

They married in 1956 and began building a life that would eventually become inseparable from the story of modern Malaysia.

There were seven children, two medical careers and, for Mahathir, a political journey that took him to the prime ministership twice.

Hasmah had her own public life and career, but through much of it they remained a couple in the truest sense of the word.

They accompanied each other, adjusted to each other and learnt when to argue and when simply to let something go.

As they grew older, the nature of that companionship changed.

The woman whose books Mahathir had once hurried to carry became increasingly concerned with looking after him.

In a 2022 interview, Hasmah spoke about accompanying him when he went out, worrying when crowds surrounded him and asking the public to help take care of her husband.

It was a different expression of the same attachment.

By then, even the language of romance had become quieter.

When they were once asked to say, “I love you” to each other, they shyly exchanged “wo ai ni”. Mahathir then explained that they had never really been people who expressed their feelings in words.

They showed it in the way they behaved towards each other.

That perhaps explains why, after seven decades together, their story still feels less like a tale of grand romance than one of enduring companionship.

The handsome young man who found an excuse to spend time with a beautiful young woman had grown old with her.

The woman who accepted his free tuition had become the person watching over him.

Hasmah died yesterday at 100. Malaysia knew them through the history they made. But before all that, there were two young people learning how to live with each other.

They did. For 70 years.

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