Those who live by the media shall die by it, was not what the editor-in-chief of the Harijan said. But he would well have had he been around in the era of Suhel Seth. The adman cum image consultant cum lobbyist cum columnist cum TV regular, who counts media bigwigs and gasbags among his many admirers, has known nothing but a fawning press.
But a scalding review of the balding Seth’s book Get to the Top by the Indian Express journalist turned Business Standard journalist, Mihir S. Sharma, in the latest issue of the monthly magazine Caravan, has seen the boarding school-boy from St. Paul’s school, Darjeeling, lose his shirt and civility—and on Twitter.
Seth called Caravan a magazine no one reads and the Harvard-educated Sharma an unemployed economist sacked from every job he has held. As blogosphere heated up, Seth, who was recently sued by tobacco major ITC for Rs 200 crore for a set of similarly senseless tweets, got the message and pulled out the tweets.
Thankfully, Caravan senior editor Jonathan Shainin has captured the exchanges between author and critic for posterity.
Screenshots: courtesy Jonathan Shainin/ Caravan
Read the review: The Age of Seth
IJR 
Suhel Seth, I feel, is one of the most overrated humans on the face of this planet. I am also amazed at the kind of attention this guy generates by his stupid ways…. It’s time we put him in place!
Loved your headline!!
You see their are 3 kinds of tweetiyas chaman, chameli, and chakarwarti, misguided gulel is a combination of all 3.
Suhel went to La Martiniere, Calcutta, never to St Paul’s Darjeeling. I should know, having been his contemporary in the former and an alumni of the latter.
It’s funny how Suhel Seth is not able to take what he so easily dishes out- criticism! I agree with the first poster, Sandeep Bhasin- the man gets more publicity than he is deserving of! His shifting tweets reveal his immaturity, inconsistency and meanness of mind.
I liked your headline, especially, the rhyming of ‘Tweetia’ with you-know-what! I have a strong suspicion that Suhel pays his way into the TV debates where he palms off the interests of his clients as ‘non-partisan, enlightened public opinion’. Of course he doesn’t like to be called a PR Agent. He calls himself a ‘Brand Marketing Consultant’! If for Manish Tewari convoluted (if often mispronounced) prose makes up for lack of content, for Suhel, his ability to turn a phrase (he is more than conscious of it; he is conceited about it) does. They both conform to what a letter-writer in a newspaper aptly described as ‘vacuous mediocrity’!