It was my summer vacation and for a change I visited my brother for it has been long and I wanted to see my Niece.It was only ten days holiday before I go for my job, so staying at brother's seemed like a good idea.

My niece is only 6 months now and she does not do much except may be smile once in a while and most of the time she is crying. My sister in law is in charge of home and brother goes to his shop..

After only two days I realised my sister in law has changed much, she looks haggard, tired and sometimes cranky too. I cannot blame her, there is home to take care of, make food and then take care of baby. The baby by the way seems very smart to me, as soon as she realises mum is not around she would holler bringing sister in law to drop everything and tend to her. The niece would do that everytime sister in law is having food, cooking food and almost certainly when she is sleeping. If she does not get the requisite attention, she would vomit, excrete and what not.

My niece biological has not set in so far and so she would wake up in the middle of night crying. Even I was awake by her shrieking even though I am considered a sound sleeper, imagine the plight of near ones. All through this and my sister in law never complained. She would get extra concerned if the baby is not eating or not sleeping or anything out of the ordinary. The ordinary being rampant crying and disturbing her.

Frankly speaking I found it more troublesome and tedious than tending to the business and she never got the due credit. In those ten days, I have seen my sister in law talking about her baby all time, till it was little annoying for me, worrying almost about everything concerned with her and getting no more than 2 hours of consecutive sleep. No wonder she was haggard, tired and cranky.

Then one day the niece did something new, something she had never done before, she rolled over and then she did the usual, she started crying. My sister in law appeared like Flash in a moment and asked me,

“Did you do this?”

“Do what?” I asked back. Frankly I was little scared for sis in law is not rational when it comes to her kid.

“Did you rolled her?”

“Nopes, she did it on her own account.” I said relieved. Am off the hook.

“Really?”

“Yes”



And from that moment on, she was on cloud nine, the niece just rolled over. She could not wait to tell everyone, the first call went to the hubby dear, then to her mother and then to everyone willing to lend her an ear. She was ecstatic..
In that moment I realised what unconditional love is about. How can a person keep on giving and expecting nothing in return and how one can endure all the sleepless nights and yet enjoy the process.Even though my sister in law is aware of the fact that in few years the niece will give her hard time, not listen to her and forget all the effort that she put in to bring her up, yet she continue to shower her with love and care.

That according to me was the display of real beauty, not the size zero perfect model, not the feat of engineering that is bugati veyron, nothing came close to describe the bond between the dependent child and the unconditional mother and that I believe is the real beauty.

I have written this post for Yahoo! India and Dove "I Believe in Real Beauty" under the topic "What does real beauty mean to me?"
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