NELSON Mandela is no more. When my generation was in its teens, a popular song went as follows: 'To dream the impossible dream/To fight the unbeatable foe/To bear with unbearable sorrow/To run where the brave dare not go/To right the unrightable wrong.../To reach the unreachable star/This is my quest/To follow that star/No matter how hopeless/No matter how far...'

If there is one person who lived up to these ambitions and more importantly reached these milestones in his own lifetime, it was Nelson Mandela, Madiba as he was fondly called.