Column

Good, strong genes have obviously played their part in blessing Nelson Mandela, who turned 91 on Saturday, with a long life, but a robust mind, and a body seasoned for toughness by playing sport have also been strong contributing factors, I reckon.

Before meeting him for the first time in 1991, a little over a year after he was released from jail, I had read some accounts of Mandela’s passion for soccer and boxing and learnt he had been active sportsperson even when incarcerated in Robben Island for more than a quarter of a century, kicking a ball around alone in his spare time, or shadow boxing, to keep himself fit.

The benefits of such rigour were evident at the breakfast meeting at his Soweto organised by the South African Cricket Board which had invited a few journalists and former cricketers to see first hand racial integration through cricket.

That morning, what I could see clearly was why Mandela would have been a ‘natural’ sportsman even if he knew very little of cricket. He had a loping, panther-like gait, his waistline was impressively trim and his handshake was as firm as a lumberjack’s. He was 73 then, yet ready to feint a jab or two, or even an upper cut.

A little over a year later, apartheid’s repressive walls had been completely demolished, India were on their first official tour of South Africa, and Mandela had become the president of the African National Congress. He was not to be head of state for till 1994, but was already the country’s symbol of moral and political propriety.On that tour, I got him to autograph his much-lauded biography by Fatima Meer, Higher Than Hope, and marvelled at his steady hand and clear penmanship.

By now I had also begun to admire his sense of humility. He was unarguably the most celebrated man in Africa, if not the world, but carried himself with the kind of refined dignity not normally associated with ‘angry rebels’. I had to read Fatima Meer’s biography again to understand that Mandela was not a rabble-rouser, but a man
of deep commitment and conviction.

Moreover, he also had a splendid sense of humour, which must have kept his optimism intact in the most adverse circumstances and contributed perhaps as much to his will to live as the physical hardship he cherished. Meer’s biography lists a letter which Mandela wrote to his daughter Zindzi (from Winnie) which captures this facet of his personality superbly.

“By the way, has mum ever told you about Nolitha, the other lady in my cell from the Andaman Islands?’’ he writes. “She keeps you, Zeni, Ndindi and Nandi, Mandla, Maki (his other children) and Mum company. It’s one matter over which Mum’s comments are surprisingly economic. She regards the pygmy beauty as some sort of rival and hardly suspects that I took her picture out of the National Geographic.

I heartily laugh when I read Mum’s letters and suppress my laughter when I talk to her face to face and notice her own struggle to hide her anger. I may have to send the picture to Zeni on my return, because I know quite well that our old tannie will be waiting at the gate with chopper and block.’’

This letter is dated October 20, 1976. Mandela was to be in jail 14 years more before being released — a hero then and for posterity. While now clearly a lion in winter, I can’t think of another contemporary political leader, in power or otherwise, who has meant so much to our species about freedom and human rights.

“He is at the epicenter of our time, ours in South Africa, and yours, wherever you are,’’ said Nobel Laureate author Nadime Gordimer of Mandela after his release. In that pithy one-liner lies perhaps the ultimate tribute to the man.