To be precise, it reminds him of his own 'baptism of fire' in late 1985.

This was when the Singapore stock market was rocked by the Pan-El crisis and the exchange was closed for three days.

Pan-Electric Industries, a holding company linked to Malaysia's political party, the Malaysian Chinese Association, collapsed under a mountain of debt and dubious forward contracts.

Mr Pillay was then a 'greenhorn' managing director of the regulatory body, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and responsible for putting together a rescue package to prevent the brokerage industry from collapsing.

In any booming market, says Mr Pillay, expectations build up to a crescendo that becomes unsustainable, tempting investors to make unwise decisions.

In the current sub-prime market, as in the Pan-El crisis 23 years ago, 'clearly there have been excesses, including by investors who were seduced into believing that they were on to a good thing'.

He offers this bit of home-spun wisdom: 'If the returns are a little too attractive, you should feel a little hesitant instead of plunging in. Exercise prudence, especially when you don't know what exactly you're plunging into.'

His own investment policy is simple: he leaves it to the professional fund managers.

At 74, Mr Pillay has been there, done that. He started life as a public works engineer in 1959, in the colonial service in Kuala Lumpur.

From KL, he heard that Singapore's new government was recruiting and that it was a good place to work. Some friends from London days, where he was at university, were working in Singapore. One of them, Dr Goh Keng Swee, who would later become Singapore's deputy prime minister, said: Come.

Mr Pillay got a job in the newly set-up Economic Development Board in 1961 and never looked back. He has served in the Finance, National Development and Defence ministries.

Ask him about the early pioneering days and he says that he was too low down the hierarchy to have much influence, and can offer his view only as an 'observer', not a mover or shaker.

Indeed, this unassuming, rather modest man questions if Singaporeans will be interested to read about the doings of a 'government wallah', as he once described himself.

The retired permanent secretary is incisive and analytical, picking his words carefully - not for fear of offending anyone, but because he clearly values precision in thought and language.

He is not a natural raconteur, and so the interview is less anecdotal than might have been expected of someone who spent 34 years in the Singapore public service, including chequered years at the start-up of Singapore Airlines.

Of his SIA days, he says he is proudest of the legacy of strong management left behind. That the airline has weathered storms and soared through turbulence is clearly a source of pride for Mr Pillay, who was midwife at its birth after Singapore separated from Malaysia when the two countries decided to have their own airlines.

He was to helm SIA as chairman from 1972 to 1996.

Mr Pillay's forte is his power of analysis: his ability to cut to the core of an issue, pick it up, metaphorically speaking, and examine it from different angles.

For example, how does a Catholic like Mr Pillay square his religion with his Government's policies on something like abortion, which was debated in the 1970s and passed into law when Mr Pillay was already very senior in the hierarchy?

He responds by telling a story of the late Belgian king Baudouin, a devout Catholic who declined to sign a law from Parliament that legalised abortion. As this would have sparked a constitutional crisis, the king took the advice of the wily prime minister to abdicate for a day, when Parliament passed the law.

The king was prepared to give up his throne for his principle - but the compromise of a day's abdication was 'a good, neat way out of the dilemma', noted Mr Pillay.

As for himself, he says he has never been in the position where he was asked to do anything against his principles.

The abortion law was not under his purview, although when the topic arose with colleagues and friends, he would speak his mind. But he saw no need to mobilise others against a policy his own religion opposed, as he did not see that as the role of a civil servant.

But supposing - for the sake of argument - that there was some hypothetical issue over which a conflict arose between his duty and his conscience. In that case, he said, he had faith that this Government would not force him to act against his principles.

One example he cited was the way public sector doctors were allowed to decline performing abortions.

And so, in a few minutes, Mr Pillay sums up what moral philosophers take tomes to go through, and comes up with a practical way of living as a person of faith in a secular public service that he reckons satisfies both his bosses and his God.

As for Mr Goh Chok Tong's description of Mr Pillay as the 'perm sec best able to stand up to his prime minister', Mr Pillay's brow furrows and he admits: ' I don't know why he said that. It makes me sound like I am looking for trouble! The truth is I am a peaceable person.'

muihoong@sph.com.sg