Would you give up lifestyle, convert to another religion, all for the sake of marriage?

Posted on Categories bizarre, blog hop, culture, philosophy, psychology, religion, Uncategorized

Aitken inside image

Would you give up your lifestyle, the comforts you are used to, be prepared for an almighty culture clash, as well as converting to a new religion, all for the sake of marrying somebody ? Some choose to take this route. Flicking through some news stories, I came across the daughter of a well-known Conservative politician Jonathan Aitken. This story is more remarkable due to the fact that Alexandra Aitken, now named Uttrang Kaur Khalsa, was once the ultimate party girl, hanging out with celebrities, going as far as to pose naked for GQ magazine, while living an utterly privileged life. She married a Sikh warrior Inderjot Singh six years ago, she describes their first encounter, seemingly still gushing ‘I was sitting on the roof of the Golden Temple at about 3am, and the most beautiful man I’d ever seen in my whole life walked in. He seemed 100 per cent man, gentle and intuitive and poetic and sensitive, but also extraordinarily strong and manly. And you don’t see many of these around. So I was like: “Oh wow!”’.

Their marriage was not some glitzy affair in London, however hundreds of holy men did come out of their caves to offer their benediction to their union. However these benedictions were not enough to sustain the marriage, which was short lived. Whether the marriage was strictly legal is also open to question. One thing is for sure is that the former Cabinet Minister’s daughter is on a spiritual mission and is upholding many beliefs that were thrust upon her by her former “husband”. Her life these day revolves around living mostly in a gurdwara (a Sikh temple) alongside yogis and meditation masters, while also being a fully-fledged green advocate. In a town of around 16,000 people, out on a limb as the only single western woman.

What to make of Alexandra Aitken/ Uttrang Kaur Khalsa? Is she a bit wacky? Mad? Or is she admirable, perhaps courageous? Certainly by reading about her, she seems strong willed. Will her story be made into a film, the Brit party girl, who marries a Sikh warrior…I could imagine a younger version of Kate Winslet, fitting the role. Her film Hideous Kinky, has echoes of the Aitken girl story.

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Published by Francis H Powell

What better way to put all my angst into short stories. Born in a commuter belt city called Reading and like many a middle or upper class child of such times I was shunted off to an all-male boarding school aged eight, away from my parents for periods of up to twelve weeks at a time. In such an institutions, where I was to rest until my seventeenth year, there was no getting away from the cruel jibes hurled at me from taunting tormentors. My refuge was the arts room, where I started to find some kind of redemption from the stark Dickensian surroundings, whose aim was nurture the army officers, businessmen, and gentry that dominate the class ridden world I was born into. The seeds were sown, I was an outsider, Happier times were to follow, I went to art school, where I attempted to exorcize my time spent at school. At eighteen I turned my back on a parentally enforced weekly visit to church and my head was filled with a range of nonconformist ideas. While at my first Art college through a friend I met a writer called Rupert Thomson, who was at the time in the process of writing his first book “Dreams of leaving”. He was a bit older than myself, me being fresh out of school, but his personality and wit resonated and despite losing contact with him, I always read his latest published books with not only great expectation and unabashed admiration, but also a fascination for a person I had really looked up to, his sentences always tight, shooting arrows that always hit the mark. My yearning to be creative stayed strong and diversified, from my twenties through to my thirties and forties I made electronic music, doing concerts, in front ecstasy infused crowds, at a point I was making videos and short films. When the age of the internet arrived I was really able translate my creative endeavors into something really tangible. To earn a living I have worked as a teacher. I moved to Austria where upon I thought I would try writing. It is sure that my writing at that time was rough and rugged and without direction. I dived into a story about immortality, the story remains vegetating on some dusty floppy disk. Then tried short stories for children with illustrations to go with them. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-forties that my writing took shape. I was at this point living in Paris, France. I spotted an advert for short stories. The magazine happened to be called Rat Mort (dead rat) I sent off a short story, in the hope it would match the seemingly dark world the magazine seemed to embroiled in. I got no answer. Not put off I sent two more stories. Finally I got an answer. It seemed the magazine editor was a busy man, a man prone to travelling. It seemed my first story really hit the right note with him. His name was Alan Clark. He had a flat in the Montmartre area of Paris, where he seemed known to all, especially those who frequented his favorite drinking haunts. He offered me many words of encouragement. I was writing stories that were coming into my head at regular intervals, as if a monster had suddenly awakened. I was writing them on scraps of paper, less I would forget them, while I travelled on the Paris metro, going about my teaching work with staid business types. I had found a format for writing that worked, as well as a hunger to write about the demons of my past that still haunted me. Moving closer to present times, the desire to put together an anthology seemed to resonate in my mind. The Flight of Destiny evolved slowly. Many trans-Atlantic exchanges between myself and two editors seemingly far away. This evolution took my writing to a new level and the stories more depth and resonance.

7 thoughts on “Would you give up lifestyle, convert to another religion, all for the sake of marriage?”

  1. Interreligion marriages are so common now a days but we rarely get to see such examples where someone specially the girl had to change her complete lifestyle. Must say Alexandra has a strong will power.

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  3. I don’t think I would be able to simply change or convert myself, even for the sake of love. These are my personal beliefs, and it is not like marriage itself is what truly dictates what love is.

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    1. Both my parents changed their religion, but for different reason to what I mention in the article, after they got married. I wouldn’t convert myself for reasons of love, it seems a bit unnatural. Thanks for your comment.

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  5. I guess some people really will do anything for love but I think if you have to give up that much of yourself then you aren’t being true to who you are on the inside. I couldn’t do that, I think you need to find balance in that sense.

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