Reminiscing about their younger days as students at King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore, Mahathir said they first met when they were freshmen in 1947.
There were only seven Malay students at the time and of the total, only one was a woman – Siti Hasmah.
“Everyone was scrambling to help carry her books when we went for lectures. I wanted to be friends, so I rushed (to help) too,” said Mahathir in a video uploaded onto his YouTube channel today.
“But sometimes I’d win. She would ask me about physics, especially. So I helped her, gave some tuition classes. I might have had more of a chance than the other five men who wanted to get close to Tun Siti.”
From Siti Hasmah’s perspective, the couple, who have been married for 65 years, only got to know each other better after she failed a paper during her first year in college.
“I failed because I didn’t know health science, but after that, there was someone who was kind enough to help and offer tuition,” she said. “He was the ‘distinction kid’. So I just accepted it since the tuition was free of charge.”
Asked if she had fallen in love with Mahathir throughout their tutoring sessions, Siti Hasmah coolly said “somewhat”.
“It wasn’t like we got along every time we met up. No, there were times where we fought,” she said, adding that they would make up by going out for a meal afterwards.
Throughout the relationship, she said, she fondly recalled that the most romantic thing Mahathir had ever done was the first time he professed his love for her.
“It was in the beginning (of the relationship) when he told me he loved me. That was the most memorable moment for me, in 1949.”
Six decades later, Siti Hasmah said her husband’s romantic gestures have become fewer with age, but “not to a point where he’ll reject a hug or a kiss, we still do that”.
Still, at the request of the interviewer, the two shyly exchanged a “wo ai ni” (I love you).
“We have never said it with words. It’s more of the way we behave towards each other,” said Mahathir.
As for their secret to a long-lasting and happy marriage, he said it is simply tolerance for one another.
Mahathir admitted that they argue occasionally, as he is a “stickler for time”, while Siti Hasmah prefers to get ready for an event in her own time.
“At the start, you can get angry but after a long time, you realise the other person cannot change.
“If she’s tardy, she’ll be tardy forever, even now. So, at this point, I choose to be patient. It doesn’t matter because that’s just who she is, what can we do about that?” he said, emitting chuckles from his wife.