The other Rishi
Not that the world has been asking for this. But, as it appears that the other Rishi will be disappearing from our collective consciousnesses very, very soon, I thought I might try to explain — to myself mostly — what the last couple of years has been like, having him in the corner of my eye all the time.
Because the thing this: you don’t expect to run into many ‘Rishi’s when growing up. Or at least I didn’t, haven’t for the nearly 47 years I’ve been here. It has been, or rather was, a unique name up until about 2020.
For sure, you might hear of, see on screen occasionally, a journalist with the same first name, maybe someone on social media. But that was about it. Nothing to really challenge that sense of, just me with this handle.
How important is that, to one’s sense of self? That your identity might be built around the fact that there aren’t, bluntly, that many of you? I’m sure the many James, Johns and Roberts of the world feel as singular and differentiated as I do. So maybe the suggestion here is that it perhaps was freighted a bit more because of the rarity of it.
Put it this way: for most of my life I have always been the only one in the room with my first name.
Then I wasn’t.
Is it a kind of reverse imposter syndrome? A ‘Damn I’m no longer as special as I thought I was’ syndrome. I don’t think it has mattered much at all, in terms of career, any achievements I might have had etc. A name is a name is a name, and doesn’t hide the good or bad of the quality of any work you do, actions you take.
What I am havering around and not quite nailing here is that sense — I can tell you this, can’t I? — that I had thought that I might be the first person carrying my first name in the UK to become well known. Not famous famous of course, that would be vulgar. But slightly more than a semi-anonymity. A renown, professional hopefully, based on my writing, poetic or otherwise.
Maybe this is a legacy of growing up in an immigrant household, one of the other things I share with him, that sense of whatever you do, it’s never quite enough to maintain your hold, your grip in this society. Keep striving, keeping jumping over more and more hurdles. And it turns out there are even more, that no one told you about. You can pass through the heart of the establishment, and still not truly be part of it.
Not that I’ve been through the heart of the establishment, only to the side of it. Which I thought might be enough to bring me to what I wanted.
And then it wasn’t. Because I won’t be the first chancellor or prime minister called Rishi.
To be clear: it’s not like I wanted to be. And yet, and yet… there is a pang there. Call it ‘dopplegangerism’, after Naomi Klein’s parallel palimpsetting with Naomi Wolf. My case of this over the last few years has not been as extreme or upsetting. But reading her book, I absolutely recognised it.
Trivially, mostly. In the early days of the pandemic, when irate freelancers would tag me on twitter demanding to know why I hadn’t extended furlough support to them. I would reply that I absolutely would love to but, you know…
His presence though has meant I’ve felt at times a comedic desperation to make sure that people know that I am not him. “I’m a full inch taller!” I have found myself saying at parties, apropos of not much. “And considerably poorer!” I do not wear trousers that ride up that high. I am not an idiot.
More substantively: how can he be taking the policy decisions he is taking? Saying the absolute bilge he is saying? I can hear you all saying: Yeah yeah, two people with the same name don’t have to think or believe the same things, get over it. Can people of colour be on the right politically? Of course. But there has been something of the wrong note of his attempts at it.
That is most likely his political ineptitude. Or maybe it comes down to etymology. I’ve been told that ‘Rishi’ simply means ‘sage’ or ‘wise’. (As if, I am always tempted to say; I have been disproving that forever). And the real shock to me and my sense of self has been: oh, maybe it really doesn’t carry that import at all. Maybe names aren’t destiny or fate.
Which is probably good thing. Anyway off he goes, to history and, hopefully, a rich obscurity. Goodbye other Rishi, may I not have to think about you again much, if ever.
