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As an outspoken human rights lawyer and ferocious opposition politician,  Karpal Singh,  68,  constantly courts danger, controversies and has been  arrested frequently in a career spanning nearly four decades.
 His exploits have earned him the nickname 'Lion of Jelutong',  after the northern constituency that first elected him to Parliament in 1974.
But now he has been joined on the national political stage by one of his sons, Gobind Singh Deo,  38.
  Mr Gobind practised as a lawyer at his father's law firm after graduating from Lincoln's Inn  in 1996 and entered Parliament last year at his first attempt. And in a relatively short time  he has already  risen to national prominence as a fiery opposition lawmaker.
 Like the father, Mr Gobind  courts controversies, fights all comers  in the courts, in Parliament and outside it, and has  quickly earned  the nickname 'Little Lion of Puchong', after the constituency near the capital that sent him to Parliament in March last year.
 Both father and son are Sikhs and members of the Chinese-majority Democratic Action Party (DAP). While the father is the party chairman, the son is a member of the  its decision-making central executive committee.
 'Speaking up against injustice and defending democracy and human rights is an everyday job for me,' Mr Karpal  said. 'I have been doing it for 30 years and I am still going at it.'
  Mr Gobind may have a hard act to follow. 
 'My father is virtually an institution, I am just starting out,' Mr Gobind said. 'I have learned a lot watching him deal with the complex legal, political and human rights issues that cross his desk.
 'I am still under his shadow,' Mr Gobind said.  'I have a long way to go.'
 But by some counts Mr Gobind has already arrived in a country dominated by majority Malay Muslims where fiery, macho style-politics is accepted as 'right and proper' by aggrieved minority Chinese and Indian voters.
 This week both father and son made national headlines, sparking an outpouring of sympathy after they were punished - the son for crossing Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak  and the father for offending Sultan Azlan Shah  of northern Perak state.
 Mr Gobind was suspended for a year from Parliament  on Monday after he called Mr Najib a murderer during a raucous debate on unrelated matters the previous  Thursday. The opposition has tried to link Mr Najib to the 2006 murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu,  but Mr Najib has  sworn on the Koran that he did not know her.
 Although Mr Gobind is protected by parliamentary immunity, his use of the word 'murderer' incensed Mr Najib's supporters who  quickly moved a motion to suspend him and carry it through with their parliamentary majority.
 On Tuesday,  Mr Karpal was himself charged with sedition, a serious offence punishable by two years' jail, for disparaging the sultan  by questioning his authority at a press conference on February 16. The sultan   had sparked a public outcry after he dismissed the opposition Pakatan Rakyat  state government and installed a fresh Umno-led National Front   administration on February 5.
 Last month Mr Karpal received threatening letters, two live bullets in the mail, and Umno members lodged  more than 100 police reports against him for 'insulting' the sultan.
 Such controversies are bread and butter stuff for Mr Karpal, who first made a name abroad while defending Australian drug trafficker Kevin Barlow,  who was executed in Malaysia in 1986. In 1989, Amnesty International declared Mr Karpal a prisoner of conscience after he was detained without trial under security laws.
 A  plaque in Mr Karpal's law office summarises his outlook on life. It reads in part, 'I will never cower before any Earthly master ...' Mr Karpal's zeal is all the more astounding because a 2005 car accident left him paralysed from the neck down and wheelchair bound.
 His many  political opponents wrote him off but after two years recuperation, Mr Karpal bounced back by returning to Parliament last year after winning the Bukit Gelugor  constituency in Penang  state.
 Another  of Mr Karpal's sons,  Jagdeep Singh,  39, is a lawmaker in Penang state and manages Mr Karpal's law office there but unlike Mr Karpal or Mr Gobind, he rarely courts controversies that make the headlines.
 Another son Ram, 36, and a daughter Sangeet, 29 are both lawyers and have not yet shown any political ambitions and the youngest Mankarpal, 21, is studying law.
 But the glue that holds the family together is Mr Karpal's devoted wife, Gurmit Kaur,  58. They were childhood friends before marrying in 1970 - the same year Mr Karpal started his law practice after graduating from the University of Singapore a year earlier.
 He also joined the DAP the same year and stood for election and lost, but four years later in 1974 he succeeded as lawmaker, starting a fiery career that has made him a household name.
 'Despite the accident and the paralysis, he is the same determined and committed Karpal that I have always known,' Ms Gurmit said. Her fervent hope is to see him walk one day. Unlike before, when Mr Karpal hogged the limelight, now he has  Mr Gobind to share the political stage.
  '[Karpal] is as fiery as ever if not more,'  opposition lawmaker Kulasegaran Murugesan  said. 'Together with the son they make a formidable team both in and outside Parliament.'



A formidable father-and-son act in Malaysia