Celebrity couple Hassan Ahmed and Sunita Marshall were guests on Masarrat Misbah’s Youtube channel where the duo opened up about how they celebrate both Islam and Christianity in their households, and have raised their children to be kind and tolerant towards all religions.
Hassan said the family celebrates Christmas holidays by putting up the tree and the children enjoy the festivities, while on Eid Sunita is involved in all of the celebrations with the rest of the family.
“Typically, what happens on Christmas is that you visit your relatives homes, you say ‘Happy Christmas’ and then you eat food, and in the same way you celebrate Eid by visiting your relatives homes and wish them ‘Happy Eid’ and eat food,” said Sunita. “I only have two chachus here, the rest of my family lives in England. On Easter, we visit my chachu’s house where we celebrate the occasion and eat food.”
Speaking about how he handles family members who are critical about their marriage, Hassan Ahmed said he chooses to ‘non-handle’ them by refusing to engage with such people about how he chooses to live his life.
“I don’t care about what they think, whoever needs to keep pondering will do so for the rest of their life. I don’t care about how they think I am spending my life, that I’m married to a Christian woman…”
Sunita had interrupted Hassan at this point and said his family had treated her with a lot of love and respect “I have never been made to feel like a Christian or an outsider among them during Eid. They treat me in the same manner as they treat Hassan.”
Hassan stressed that it is his primary responsibility to ensure that his wife and children are treated with a lot of respect, and keeps critical people at an arm’s length “If there is someone talking about me behind my back then I keep them at an arm’s length because I don’t care about what they have to say. And it’s very important for everyone to respect my wife, my children and my parents.”
