Heart and Soul: My mother had the makings of a wonderful nurse

Dawn Usharani Biswas holding her baby daughter Sheela Kanagasabai in this 1958 picture. — Sheela Kanagasabai

Growing up in a family of different cultures, I always wondered why my late mother spoke to each of her siblings in different dialects.

My grandfather was an immigrant from Bangladesh who spoke Bengali and Gujarati fluently. He learnt how to converse in Bahasa Malaysia when he was offered a contract to work as a general practitioner in a health clinic on an estate during the colonial days in Malaya.