The former wing wizard, star-maker and coaching royalty remains as gung-ho for king and country as they come.
As a player and coach, he illuminated the character of a dedicated sportsperson who brought people together.
Today, as a family man and community elder, he continues to preach that success need not be determined by our background, but by our dedication to others.
He has made the right choices, and he has said and done the right things, ensuring his legacy remains as strong as ever.
Like many other legends, volumes of books could be written about the courage, tireless industry and gentle humility of Karathu.
Every chapter will bring a mainline into a once strong sporting culture and create rich, nuanced portrayals that reflect the heart of a genuine sportsman.
His Aladdin’s cave of trophies and coaching certificates weren’t just the highlights, it was all one big highlight.
It is hard to find anyone expressing anything other than adoration for the former national and Perak left-winger, who later achieved coaching majesty.
Even those who never saw him in action respect him, evidenced by the elaborate handshakes he gets when he goes on his daily 3 to 4km walk, and the invitations to matches and glitzy football dinners.
As birthday greetings poured in, Karathu said: “I’m humbled by the good wishes that resonate strongly with me. I will not be where I am without the support I had received as a player and coach.”
Karathu shone as a player when Malaysian football used to be about pragmatism, pride and enterprise.
The Bagan Serai-born lad showed young people that, whatever your upbringing, it’s possible to take control of your life and a ball, and become the best.
His playing days with Perak, which began on the Yuk Choy High School field on Jalan Kuala Kangsar, saw the state emerge champions of Malaysia Cup and FAM Cup between 1964 and 1970.
He recalled scoring the goal that helped Perak beat Singapore 2-1 in the first Malaysia Cup final in 1967. Three years later, he captained his state to its fourth title in the competition, which was earlier known as HMS Malaya Cup.
Karathu earned 38 caps for Malaysia, appearing at the 1966 Asian Games, Sea Games, several Merdeka Cup tournaments and regional championships.
A serious knee injury in 1971 cut short his playing career, and by the age of 28, he was managing Perak’s Burnley Cup side that included P Umaparam and Vincent Thambyrajah, who later became national players.
“At that time, I did not have a coaching certificate and I used the knowledge that I gained as a player under five different foreign coaches while playing for the country in five Merdeka Cup tournaments,” said Karathu.
His former players said Karathu was always in full motivational mode as a coach, giving everything and expecting his players to give everything.
Some have said Karathu was a personality coach, somebody whose greatest gift was his capacity to inspire by charismatic authority.
The blazing charisma of the cool, yet tough, Karathu was such that when he blinked, the other guy was emboldened. Ego was not permitted to impede ambition.
Karathu said he took pride that his teams, like Kinta Indians Association (KIA) – the first Perak club to reach the FAM Cup final in 1987 – and the 1990 state team that won the first FA Cup, played the game with an unstoppable buzz of beauty and joy from start to finish.
As coach of Perak, Kelantan and Negeri Sembilan and KIA, he produced numerous household names in Malaysian football.
The pint-sized tactician – he’s only 5-foot-5 – served four stints as Perak coach, and in his last job, then 72-year-old Karathu was Malaysia Super League’s oldest head coach.
Karathu said becoming an octogenarian was unlikely to curb his vitality and ability to change with the times. “The fixation with the game will keep me going for a long time.”
Who better, then, to offer expertise for free to football academies in Ipoh?
Karathu said many coaches at these academies were merely supervising but not coaching.
“They struggle to develop the children, aged between 10 and 16, in the critical aspects of physical and mental strength, and positive sportsmanship.
“I will offer my advice for free for them to understand child psychology, to identify talents and to develop the children in the right way.”
Karathu said he never missed top EPL and La Liga matches as the performances of top individual players gave him the opportunity to analyse their technical skills, and their teams’ defensive and attacking tactics.
“A footballer touches the ball for three to four minutes in a game and the player’s work during the rest of the game is vital for success,” he said.
Karathu said while football was a simple game, “you have to learn constantly as there are a lot of things to learn, a lot of things to watch”.
He produced 1,200 coaches under the one school, one coach programme, when he was technical director of Perak FA from 2004 to 2008.
He earned invaluable coaching experience during a three-month FA England coaching course in 1974 under Ron Greenwood (West Ham), Dave Mackay (Derby County) and Gordon Milne (Coventry City). It was also then that he became a Liverpool supporter.
Later, as Asian Football Confederation senior coach education instructor, he shaped many coaches in Asia.
His far-reaching coaching techniques got him international attention. In 1999, he became the first Malaysian to coach a foreign national side when he was put in charge of Sri Lanka, and two years later, he was made technical director of Tajikistan FA.
Across the causeway, he was named Singapore coach of the year after taking Woodlands Wellington from last place to fourth in the S League in 2002.
It shouldn’t surprise us that a legendary athlete like Karathu is also a good storyteller.
You could listen to him for hours as he reminisces about games as far back as the 1960s, goal scorers, coaches, referees, locker room culture and about playing rugby at King Edward VII School in Taiping, where he grew up.
He vividly recalled Perak holding Maccabi Tel Aviv, the winners of the second Asian club championships, to a 1-1 draw in the group stage in 1969 in Bangkok.
Then, there’s the story of how the Perak team reserves and officials took a train ride of nearly 20 hours to Singapore for the FAM Cup final, while the first eleven took a flight from Ipoh.
In the end, the whole team rejoiced as captain Yee Seng Choy silenced the Jalan Besar Stadium with a thundering freekick 10 minutes from the end for a 3-2 win for Perak.
Karathu often emphasised how players in his era learned to be patriotic, disciplined and committed to making the nation proud.
He said ’60s Malaysian coach Choo Seng Quee once reprimanded a player who hid while his teammates did laps at Merdeka Stadium: “Cheating during workout means you are cheating the country.”
You would love to hear about how newspapers changed his actual name Karuthu @ Rajendran Maruthaiah to Karathu, but he let it go.
“My family members call me Rajendran at home out of respect for my grandfather whose name is Karuthu,” said the man with the trademark moustache, who received the Datukship title in 2010.
Such stories and many more will come in abundance when Karathu celebrates his birthday at his daughter’s home in Shah Alam, along with his wife P Rajeswari, their three children and six grandchildren.