V Thannimalai, who is the deputy president of the National Council of Senior Citizens’ Organisations Malaysia, said the late sultan was a down-to-earth person and mingled with all and sundry.
“Very friendly person, we love him very much because of his simplicity, and he keeps in touch with his classmates.
“I have seen the Kedah sultan stopping his car and getting his driver to call out to his classmates passing by. And they would talk,” the Sungai Petani native told FMT.
Thannimalai, 81, who was awarded the Justice of Peace and the Dato Setia Diraja Kedah by the late sultan, said the ruler’s memory was great.
“When I met the sultan during an investiture ceremony when he was Agong, I struck up a conversation with him. I said ‘I am from Kedah’.
“He stopped in his tracks and started asking me ‘how was this person and how was that person’.
“He had excellent recall of old memories and was a very caring and thoughtful ruler. He clearly was a man of the rakyat,” said Thannimalai, who was a former state MIC chairman.
Meanwhile, Kedah DAP assemblyman Tan Kok Yew described the late sultan as one who personified integrity.
Tan recalled the sultan’s visit to his secondary school in the 1980s, where he delivered a speech.
“I was so amazed by his personality when I heard him give a speech at my alma mater, SMK Keat Hwa.”
Tan, who is also Kedah DAP chief, said although news of the late sultan being in ill health was made known to his subjects, many Kedahans refused to accept the fact that he was indeed ill.
“I have always prayed that His Highness would continue to rule our great state. His passing has left a mark on all Kedahans,” Tan said.
The late ruler was first appointed as the Agong at the age of 47 and appointed again in 2011, the only sultan to have held the post twice.
Sultan Abdul Halim first ascended the throne as the fifth Yang di-Pertuan Agong in 1970, at a time when the country was recovering from the racial riots of May 13, 1969.
He became the 14th Yang di-Pertuan Agong in 2011, under a unique rotation system of election of the nine Malay Rulers.
Sultan Abdul Halim was born on Nov 28, 1927, and ascended the Kedah throne after the demise of his father, Sultan Badlishah, in 1959.
He was married to Sultanah Bahiyah Tuanku Abdul Rahman, who died in 2003.
He then married a commoner from Perak, Haminah Hamidun, who was crowned as Sultanah in 2004.