I remember him differently.

He once walked into a bicycle shop in Seremban in shorts and asked for a discount.

The shopkeeper refused. Flat.

The customer bargaining for a cheaper bicycle was the newly appointed menteri besar of Negeri Sembilan.

Photographer Leong Weng Onn and I had followed him on what felt like an ordinary errand. He wanted a bicycle for his son.

No convoy, no aide. Just a man in sandals trying to save a few ringgit.

When Leong pointed to the framed photograph on the wall — the Yang di-Pertuan Besar on one side, the menteri besar on the other — the shopkeeper’s smile faded.

He looked at the frame, then at the man in front of him.

He laughed. Isa laughed harder. The discount came.

That was 1982. Isa was 33. A former schoolteacher handpicked by Dr Mahathir Mohamad to lead Negeri Sembilan.

Small in build, simple in dress, quick with a grin. Titles slid off him with ease.

It happened again at a coffee shop one evening. Shorts, slippers and no ceremony.

When I introduced him as menteri besar, the owner scoffed. Only when he studied the framed photograph above the cashier did the colour drain from his face. The tea that followed was free.

Isa enjoyed those moments. They humanised him. They kept him close to the ground.

At St Paul’s Institution sports day, he arrived as guest of honour and lasted barely 20 minutes on the dais.

Soon he drifted toward the media corner, pulling up a chair as if he were still in the staff room.

Schoolboys gathered and he spoke to them as a teacher would, not as a politician. The crowd leaned in.

He had that effect. Not grand, not theatrical. Just present.

Isa worked the same way with reporters. “Ask me anything,” he would say, waving us into his office. No script. No filters.

The press camped outside because access was easy and answers came without fuss.

In Seremban, when a group of us took Mandarin lessons, he surprised us by turning up.

He sat through the lesson and came back the following week. “Language is the way forward,” he told us. It was a small gesture, but it spoke of a man comfortable stepping into unfamiliar rooms.

On the political stage, he could shift easily. In village halls, he spoke the language of daily life. He understood both appetite and audience.

Isa could host national leaders and shift tone with ease. In public halls he mixed humour with loyalty.

Within Umno he built networks that stretched beyond state lines.

A teacher who rose young. A politician who mastered access. A connector who became a power broker.

For 22 years he held the menteri besar’s office. He later moved to federal politics, became a minister and chaired Felda, the agency built to uplift rural settlers.

He knew the machinery of party and government, and he knew who to call and when.

Younger leaders sought him out. He had survived storms and faction fights. He had helped others climb.

Power suits some men. It tests all men.

In 2021, the High Court found him guilty on nine corruption charges involving about RM3.09 million linked to Felda’s purchase of the Merdeka Palace Hotel in Kuching.

The court sentenced him to six years in prison and a hefty fine. The Court of Appeal later set aside the conviction. He walked free.

This week the Federal Court restored the conviction and the six-year sentence.

The bench ruled that the prosecution had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt and the judges cited witness testimony and the money trail.

They issued a warrant of committal. Isa, now 76, began his jail term in Sungai Buloh.

Courtrooms strip away anecdote. They deal in evidence and statute. The judges spoke of corruption as a grave offence that harms a nation.

Their language was firm. Their reasoning detailed. The years of appeal ended in a quiet, final order.

For those who knew Isa in the early days, the contrast is stark.

The man who once bargained for a bicycle now counts days behind walls. The leader who invited reporters to ask him anything faces questions he cannot answer in public.

The teacher who stepped off the dais to chat with boys has stepped into a different institution.

It would be easy to reduce his story to a single word. Hero. Villain. Victim. None fits neatly.

He rose young. He understood people. He built bridges inside a party that shaped the country for decades.

He also made choices that brought him before the courts. A leader undone not by obscurity, but by the weight of office.

In the end, what lingers for me is not the courtroom but the shop wall. A framed photograph; a shopkeeper who failed to recognise the man standing beneath it; a burst of laughter.

A lesson in how power can feel light in one season and heavy in another.

And in Sungai Buloh, a former teacher sits with the echo of both.