Blood was trickling down my right leg from a wound in my knee. I couldn't wipe it away because I was using both my hands to take notes; I couldn't sit down because I wasn't a VIP lucky enough to have a seat.

It was the opening of the International Convention Centre in Durban in 1997, president Nelson Mandela was speaking and something as insignificant as the flesh wound I had incurred moments before had to wait until I was back in the newsroom.

It was a Friday night, when the weekly Saturday newspaper for which I worked went to print. We all knew we were cutting it really fine. Photographer Sherelee Clarke had to take a picture worthy of the front page -- the only page that hadn't been printed -- and I had to write a story to hold its own on the most important page of the paper.

While we weren't panic-stricken, we were nonetheless nervous and doing our best to cover our bases by interviewing other schlebs and VIPs.

If Clarke didn't get a picture of Madiba, it would be bad, very bad; if I didn't get a few decent quotes from him, my news editor would (as she had done before) make me pay. See why my tripping over a concrete block, falling on my knees and tearing my jeans, was insignificant?

We weren't given a copy of Madiba's speech and, though it was just the opening of a convention centre, it was arguably one of South Africa's most significant investments in what was heralded as the dawning of a new and economically viable South Africa for all.

After the obligatory fireworks, Madiba made his way down to the car park as Clarke ran and I hobbled after him, though there was no chance of us getting anywhere near him as his entourage, which included several hefty bodyguards, closed in around him.

Clarke finally got close enough to snap a good picture, but she was pushed out of the way by one of his bodyguards. Madiba saw this happening and then did something rather simple, yet extraordinary. He told the bodyguard in question to move out of the way and then asked Clarke to take a picture of him, which she did.

I can't remember if the bodyguard had caused Clarke to fall or if she had injured herself in some other way that night, but we had both sustained wounds and, after we had filed the story and pictures, we sat with our feet up on my desk marvelling at the statesman that no other South African politician could ever come close to.

My scraped knee-cap healed over the following weeks, leaving a small, barely visible scar, but I still have my Madiba jeans.

That night wasn't the first time I had been close to him.

Two years before, Mandela was attending the opening of a religious centre at a university in KwaZulu-Natal. I was a member of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University and we were to form a guard of honour for him as he walked into the centre. It was one of only three occasions in my life when I have worn a sari, as I don't have the inherent grace required for such attire, but I was glad to do it for him.

I thought we looked pretty cool. Black, white, Indian and coloured, all in white saris, standing in silence as Madiba and his entourage arrived. He stopped and spoke to a few of us as he made his way to the entrance. I closed my eyes and willed him to stop, and talk to me.

My head began to swirl with the countless things that one feels one should say to such an esteemed entity, but my mind couldn't settle on any one statement.

After what felt like aeons, he stopped in front of me and held out his hand. He said: "It is an honour to meet you."

What the ... ? What did he mean by that? Why was it an honour for him to meet an absolute nobody like me? What did I say to that?

Like the ubiquitous nerd scene in those dreadful teen movies where the geek doesn't know what to say to the cheerleader who greets him, I stood in front of Madiba open-mouthed and did nothing but shake his hand a tad too vigorously. He smiled benevolently. He knew all too well the effect he had on most people, let alone a young woman from a spiritual organisation who was having the most unspiritual of thoughts about this tall, well-built, lovely-smelling, kind-faced man in front of her.

My mother was mortified. "You said nothing?" she shouted. "How could you not have said anything to him? You, who always have something to say, couldn't say anything to such an important person? Really, Sukasha, what is the point of being such a loudmouth if you couldn't even muster up a hello?"

So, Madibs, I'm sorry I didn't have anything to say, but I honestly didn't think that I could say anything that you hadn't heard a million times before. And if I had to do it all over, I wouldn't change anything. I would simply shake your hand and be blinded again by your warmth and the African sun as you walked away.