AMBUSHED BY THE CANOSSIAN CONNOISSEUR OF CREATIVE CONFABULATIONS

What follows is just a random musing of Dilip Mukerjea, especially when he has the sudden irrepressible itch to write something out of the blue:

When God granted innocence, He made sure He gifted it upon me…along with naïveté! Innocence and naïveté make a cocktail guaranteed to bring down any unsuspecting soul…victim of Canossian Martial Arts. I was one such victim.

This Diminutive Emissary of Providence, alias Nun, I met one afternoon, in the madding crowd that inhabits, and invigorates, a typical Singapore food court. We were introduced by one of those Purified Souls that had been pickled in Pickwickian Principles addressing the rigours of spiritual epistemology; she was also a Wannabe-Nun! She (not the Wannabe, but the Providential Nun of Peerless Pedigree!) smiled, that lethal smile, one that can fell an oak in an instant! Hah! With a multiplicity of souls such as her, the Canossians and their Creative Commando Units are surely on target to trump all chumps…at least one such as me.

I got to ‘know’ her over the next few months, as much as one can know how to catch mercury with a fork! She had been ‘in touch’ with her cognitive meanderings and sporadically called to check on my insanity! One day, with serpentine ease, she inveigled me into agreeing to meet one of the stalwarts of educational brain science at an institution of cerebral invincibility. Despite being incomparably busy with my own agenda, watching the seasons change in Singapore…I agreed, and noted the date, several weeks away. Not trusting my memory, the good sister took it upon herself to send my mnemonic neurons streams of reminders with unmatched regularity. There was no way I could forget the appointment, even if I were to subside into a coma!

The big day arrived. I directed my four-wheeled chariot to her doorstep. We drove to the institution, me driving, she navigating. You can imagine the route taken; nay, the routes, for her skills at geographical intelligence were infused with a diabolical sense of humour! I wheeled us across the highways and byways, waylaid by the wayside, sidetracked by my sidekick, lane-changing with maniacal intent in deference to her colossal sense of direction. We moved, oh did we move, but always in the wrong direction!

She called ‘them’ to say we’d be late…but thanks more to panic than my spatial skills, we arrived…on time! At Reception, she enquired about the Lady Superior of the Institution, declaring in diminutive but determined tones that we had an appointment…as if that were enough to grant us an audience with august beings! The organisms at Reception looked at us as if we’d lost our senses! I looked at ‘her’, the Canossian Connoisseur of Creative Confabulations, as if she’d pranked me and my unsuspecting soul! She stayed composed, a flicker of a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth, her brain resolute; we did have an appointment and if ‘she’ had forgotten about it ‘we’ had not! So, much like a leashed urchin, I stayed still as a statue, but far from statuesque!

Suddenly, a tornado swooped upon the stillness at Reception. The Great Soul of Sensational Standing at the Institution of Elegant Eminence had arrived…but only to grab something from her haven (disparagingly called an ‘office’ by uneducated souls). Somehow, she spotted us, or rather, sensed the Great Spirit of Canossian Chieftainhood (she, the sister, more hood, than chieftain!). I was graced by a dark look of obsidian gloom, the High Priestess accurately determining my worth as that of a slug in a slugfest, on the losing side!

Propriety trumped disdain; she (The Brains & Beauty Emissary of Educational Exquisiteness) decided to put up with me, and not inflict a put down that her looks suggested I deserved. So we met. The Nun’s sense of humour was oxygenated with the sight of me looking bewildered before the Great Sovereign of Stunning Smartness. I was asked what I wanted. I wanted nothing! Ergo my bewilderment. All I’d done was follow the Nun’s directives to present myself before this Supreme Persona of Educational Excellence…and to exchange wisdom!

[Say Keng's Personal Note: Any resemblance to actual incident or person is purely an act of divine intervention!]