Where Is My Hand?

So I bolted out of the hall feeling high like someone on drugs and rising in the air like balloon. I had just finished an exam and my course mates were eagerly waiting outside for me to come and relate to them the information I had. Scattered higgledy-piggledy like sheep without shepherd, probably discussing the exam questions, I knew what I needed to do –gather them together– and that was exactly what I did. Then, I began addressing them, oh it had been a while I dazzled them with my witty speeches and comic remarks. They quietly listened to the sentences dropping smoothly from my mouth word hook line, sinker and were enjoyably gulping down every word as if they were inspirational quotes from motivational books or a best-selling novel worth being glued to. Were they memorizing my words like an inspirational poem in a poetry collection?

Lost among them, there I was feeling like Jesus Christ because no one could know that I was their leader. It wasn’t up to three minutes I started, like the shock of bad news, I was interrupted when I was told that somebody was calling me. I left after taking permission from my people; they didn’t even mind, they gave it to me readily. When I got there, I met four men standing and one of them, a tall, dark, clean-shaven, quite handsome man dressed in suit who spoke:

Me (bowing): Good morning sirs.

The Man: Good morning. Are you the Class Rep.?

Me: Yes sir. (I said it confidently, not intimidated by their number or looks.)

The Man: What are you doing here? (He asked without any indication of harshness.)

Me: I am passing some information to them, that’s why we are gathered here.

The Man: But you could have gone to an empty hall to do that instead of staying here. You can even gather them in the hall where you wrote your exam. Because it looks to me like you’re plotting a coup or something. (So he said yet again in a soft manner.)

Me (Smiling at the mild joke or call it a cool insinuation): Oh no sir, it’s short information I have for them, it won’t take long.

The Man: It’s a short one. Okay. But if I come around and still find you here, I’ll take it for something else because that means it’s not short anymore. (I immediately felt that that was a serious issue he had just borne without any spite.)

Me: No problem sir.

The Man: Alright then.

Me: Thank you sir. (He shook me and left in the bus he came in.)

That was it! He shook me and I couldn’t feel my hand anymore! I quickly rounded off the meeting with my people and they dispersed. But all through the short time I still couldn’t feel my hand. This is not literature and fiction, it did happen. I thought as time passed by I would get over it; but hell no, far from it. What did he do to me? Whether my hands froze off on me or lost the life flowing through it immediately I shook him, I couldn’t say. Could there be any scientific explanations for that? May be or maybe not. It was as if he had rubbed a traditional potion on his hand and when I shook him or he shook me, whichever way you put it, a magical effect kicked into action taking over me. Hello! Can you help me out? I said I can’t feel my hand anymore. Where is my hand?

Would you advise me to go see a doctor? Or report the case at the police station? My friends wanted to hold and shake it but I refused them courteously. Anyway, don’t worry about it. Thanks a bunch for your concern. I really do appreciate it. If I go to the doctor, it would be a worthless waste of time and if I go to the police station, I would be found guilty. Why? It’s quite simple: my thinking made it so, my thinking made me feel I lost my hand. But of course I’ll be justified considering the reason behind my answer. “What reason?” You may ask. The reason was that immediately he shook me and turned to leave, one of his retinue whispered to me and said, “Try to finish what you’re saying quickly in five minutes and make sure you all leave this place. He’s the VC.”

Oh now you know, but please hold it right there. Don’t rush to say anything until you answer this question: if you were the student, wouldn’t you feel the same? I lost only my hand; wouldn’t you lose your… may be head? No hard feelings pal, I’m just joking. But it’s true. I’m not just creating an unnecessary scene of images on your mind or writing some mindless story just to waste your time or amuse you. This is where I’m going: the simplicity of Prof. Adeniyi S. Gbadegesin, the Vice Chancellor to me that day amazed me. I found it hard to get out of my mind the way he made clear his point to me that he didn’t like our staying there (because of students’ protests disrupting academic functions around the time) but without hurting me. The brief meeting turned into one of many important short stories which filled me with fresh blood of motivational lessons I can’t help but write.

Frank A. Clarck said, “Everyone strives to achieve big but we forget that life is full of little things.” Little things like smile, kindness, humility, and the list goes on and on. Julia A. Fletcher Carney (1823-1908) said, “Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land. Thus, our little errors make a mighty sin. Little deeds of kindness, little words of love, make our world an Eden, like the heaven above.” In fact, a Saudi Arabian Proverb says, “A kind word can attract even a snake from its nest.” I love Spencer Kimball’s definition of humility, which says, “Humility is royalty without a crown.” These are timeless inspirational quotes I see eye to eye with, and that was exactly what he put to play. I can go on and on quoting people. I’ll love to finish it here but not before I tell you Mother Teresa’s which says, “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”

More so, he didn’t ask one of his people while staying in the bus, to tell me and my people to get out of the place. He came down and personally asked me to come. He didn’t pocket his hands, didn’t look at me in a condescending way nor did he talk to me in a highhanded and dictatorial manner. If he had done so well, no one would blame him, he had every right to do so given the lofty and feared position he occupied. But no, he decided otherwise. He gave me a golden opportunity to enter his presence and he lavished on me the fragrance of his humility which filled the entire atmosphere.

I’m not flattering here; I’m just explicitly saying how I felt about the less than two minutes meeting where I learnt lessons weighing over two hundred metric tons. He neither downplayed nor disrespected a young man like me. That’s a good leadership quality I’ve been cultivating over the years and I felt on top of the world seeing it done to me. It’s a type that’s rare among top leaders. It’s one of the marks of true leaders which I’ve read in books and in many free stories online.

Thank God I saw one from the Vice Chancellor of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria that day. It was a day I will never forget – Thursday, December 1, 2011, around 11:15 A.M. I don’t need to imagine how I’ll feel when I shake Mr. President; I already have a sample with the VC. That doesn’t mean I won’t love to shake Mr. President; I’ll love to but much more is that I want to be and I will be the President of this great nation. Just one observation though: I still can’t feel my hand!

“A great man shows his greatness in the

way he treats little men.”

 – Carlyle