KUALA LUMPUR: For biographer Bernice Narayanan, the passing of former Cabinet minister and MIC president Tun S. Samy Vellu was a sad moment in her life. Having spent much time with him to write his biography, she said he was an astute gentleman in his private life and had won many admirers.
Titled A life, A Legend, A Legacy, the biography was published in 2010. Bernice was recommended to Samy Vellu and she was invited for an initial interview with him along with a few other writers.
Bernice, who is also a public relations consultant, described the late Samy Vellu as kind, humble, passionate and funny.
“I met him at his office and introduced myself. Eventually, I laid down my terms to write the biography and told him that he had to be brutally honest about everything.
“I needed to understand the good, the bad and the ugly. As I was leaving, he said: ‘I like you and I think we can work well together”.’
Samy Vellu had wanted the biography to be a coffee table book that people would enjoy reading. She said the book involved six weeks of interviewing him and three months to complete.
“He was always so very courteous towards me during the interview process. He was a vegetarian, but whenever I visited him at his house for interviews and such as part of the biography writing process, I would be served a seafood dish and a meat dish, just to make sure that I ate well.”
During the time she spent with him, she said he taught her a lot about humility. For instance, while conducting research and interviews with people who had had interactions with him, she came across many wonderful stories about him.
“He initially did not want me to include them in the book. But I told him we have to put some in, and we eventually settled with two or three stories about how his help had changed the lives of some people.”
Bernice also said in private, Samy Vellu was a lovable character and had a following among people of different races and walks of life. The people in his constituency loved him so much that they frequently made him vegetarian nasi lemak and kuih ketayap when he was MP for Sungai Siput.
“He always appreciated the kind gestures and that reflected in his personality. He always appreciated life and could handle anything it churned out.”
As Samy Vellu’s biographer, her research also involved gathering information from independent sources such as the National Archives, and she said she had ample historical material to pick from. She described Samy Vellu as an “open book”, who had nothing to hide, adding that she is grateful for the opportunity to write about him, and emphasised that the biography was meant to inspire others.
Bernice said she had always felt intrigued when writing it.
“Samy Vellu’s story is a great one as he came from humble beginnings, where his parents were rubber tappers.
“He became the man he was through the school of hard knocks and was able to rise (in life). I think that speaks a lot about his character and guts of steel,” she added.
