Grandson’s book aims to uphold icon’s value to world

NDABA Mandela is tall, even as a teenager, but as he stands, head bowed, in front of his grandfather, Nelson Mandela, he doesn’t feel that way.

The Old Man, as he is affectionately known, is giving him one of his famously harsh lectures.

Just days earlier, as a teen and in high school, Ndaba is bust “out enjoying the pleasant weather and sharing a nice fat spliff” with some friends. His school finds out and he is suspended for a week. But Madiba didn’t know about the incident until a local newspaper, without mentioning names, reported on it.

With Ndaba “already known for blazing mad joints”, he had no choice but to confront his grandfather.

“He sat in his chair, listening in that deeply listening Madiba way as I floundered through the whole sordid tale,” Ndaba says of the confrontation.

Madiba responds: “Oh, Ndaba, I can’t believe this. I’m shocked. This is so below you. I can’t believe you would do such a thing. Are you serious about your life? Do you understand the nature of the opportunities extended to you with your name? There are opportunities to help people – to do great things – and there are equal opportunities to burn it all to the ground.

“To humiliate the people who love and care for you. Your name is your name, but who are you? You have a choice. Every minute of every day, the choice is yours.” Ndaba recalls that Mandela was “angry”. “But more than that, he was deeply disappointed. After a

while, he told me to go. Walking out of that room, leaving my granddad with this leaden expression of sadness on his face, I felt like I’d been punched in the throat. But I was determined to fix this,” he says.

This story is contained in Ndaba’s first book, Going to the Mountain: Life Lessons from my Grandfather,

Nelson Mandela. It is a deeply personal – perhaps surprisingly so – account of Ndaba’s journey into manhood with his grandfather towering over him.

“My thing is to find a way to answer how we make sure that people understand the value of Nelson Mandela,” he said in an interview.

“For me, it’s particularly looking at the younger generation because the older generation are very familiar – they know exactly what the value of Nelson Mandela is. The younger generation, on the other hand, may not be as well versed with Nelson Mandela and what he means to the world.”

Despite this lofty ambition, the book is not mere fluff.

It deals with hard issues, including Ndaba’s criticism of how his strict grandfather handled his parents’ marriage, the death of both his parents from HIV (and how he drank himself to sleep before his mom’s death), and how his relationship with his older brother, Mandla, broke down completely.

Going to the Mountain will be available from June 28.