Suhel Seth, adman, actor, lobbyist, news TV pundit and god knows what else (the Facebook page for his book describes him as that know-all of our age, “marketing guru”), has published a self-help book that Mihir Sharma set out to review for The Caravan magazine. It is not Mr Sharma’s fault that this review became a profile of Seth, because he found that in the garb of a self-help book Seth had written an autobiography!
Mr Sharma notes:
Seth says his most important rule is: “Don’t make clients out of friends. But make friends out of clients.” Yet Suhel is friends with “almost everyone there is to know in the country”, or so the book’s jacket informs us. This may finally provide the explanation for why Get to the Top exists: he’s made friends at such a phenomenal rate that he must be running out of clients. [Must read – the full review.]
The book came out in October. The press publicity included an excerpt in Outlook magazine, a very serious interview in the newspaper Mint, and a review on CNN-IBN news channel’s website that found “nothing pretentious” in the book.
None of those will make the book sell as much as Mr Sharma’s send-up of Mr Seth. Mr Sharma gives you a critical framework, as it were, with which you can laugh your way through the buffoon’s buffoonery.
Mr Seth, however, did not take kindly to the review essay, and wrote a series of angry posts on Twitter, which he later deleted. However, Jonathan Shainin of The Caravan had taken a screenshot just in time:
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
Those innumerable souls who had cursed Suhel for his arrogant stupid replies to their personal psychological questions in Graffiti, the Telegraph magazine, would be dancing and singing today.
Suhel Seth’s very existence is a dark comedy. And this is getting all the more comic with Mihir Sharma’s epic piece!
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Hilarious stuff! I have said this many times before: He does look like the Hot Shots Deux “Dog+Saddam” amalgamation a la mercury man from Terminator.
But the truth is, we need such people. Like Mahesh Bhatt, too. What else will the news channels do if there is no one to talk about contemporary issues – burning ones like, when it rained in Delhi; what does the aam admi think about Sunny Leone; how to hang politicians from the nearest pole etc.
Studio butterflies! Never mind if there are a few politicians too who can compete with Suhel and his companions for screen space. We need more Suhel Seths. Just as we lament the end of 8 years of non-stop entertainment in the Bush Presidency (Remember “homocidal maniac”? or “Is our children learning”?) we would probably need de-addiction treatment if we did not get our daily dose of Seth’s Wisdom.
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If nobody was reading Caravan before, a whole lot of people are reading it now.
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I do hope the likes of Rajdip Sardesai and Arnab Goswami get the message that if they continue to inflict opinionated gasbags like Suhel Seth and other sundry motormouths from the advertising, and PR worlds, they will be faced with the backs of viewers. I am one of those who has forsworn spending my evenings with the shouting matches their TV channels serve up on prime family time and have returned to the bosom of my family, thanks very much. Thanks to Mihir Sharma for letting the gas out of the bag.
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This book begs a question that has not been asked so far—whose idea was it to get Mr Seth to write it? I have a strong feeling Mr Seth can’t write even a bad book—someone must have ghostwritten this. Who?
Raja M
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Thanks to Mihir Sharma, we have an article about Suhel Seth which is not written by Suhel Seth or his friends or clients or by all those who fill the dubious space in between. One must also applaud Jonathan Shainin’s foresight. Who would have thought that clicking Suhel Seth’s tweets or for that matter even following him might actually turn out to be useful someday.
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The less attention given to gasbags the btr, did he desrve a post?! NOT:))) – We need to avoid paying attention to a blabberer, self-publicist like Suhel Seth. He wld be laffing his way to the office this morning thrilled at the fact that he is trending on Day 2! Nothing suits him more than to be talked about.
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Well, a brilliant piece. But one point missed by those worried about giving so much time or space to a gasbag: Mihir’s piece is not just about Suhel or about his book, it is about what he and his book reveal about our society and times. Mihis is saying this is the kind of scum that rises to the top in our (civil?) society.
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Doesn’t deserve a post in Kafila, come on guys. You’ve just made his day!
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its never a waste, when a piece is so damn brilliantly written!
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I’m sorry, I never realised Kafila was trying to mimic Page 3. How is laughing at this individual relevant to anything? You just lost yourself an avid follower.
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Entertaining! Suhel Seth has been so immature about this whole thing. I think he has never heard of freedom of press. Mihir, I love your work!
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comments closed
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This Suhel said on Times Now Channel today the 9th of Aug, 2012 that he can easily organise a rally of 30,000 crowd for any movement by bringing in bollywood stars. He bellittled Ramdev’s anti-corruption movement thus. He was told by Mr. Venkatesh that not even a dog will bark, though he may get such a crowd against anti corription movement.
Kiran Kher then asked Tushar Gandhy to do a Mahatma Gandhy act and lead the country against anti corruption. He refused to do that and instead critisised Anna Hazare and Ramdev. This is the sort of elite people including from the Gandhy clan talking about corruption. And this Joker Gandhy, I presume, was proposed as a candidate for the Presidential by none other than Mamata. And Suhel supported such a joker.
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Arnab Goswami will do a great favour to the nation by not thrusting people like Suhail seth
on his news channel. He is the most obnoxious person With his weird opinons.
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Suhel Seth was lowering his own values when he recently said in Arnab Goswami’s non stop attack program on BCCI President Mr. Srinivasan that next day morning, the Son in Law would come on TV Channel with Sandalwood paste on his forehead. This speaks volume about the base character of a person who was actually waiting to make a critical remark on the entire class of people hailing from South of India. Poor taste of a loud mouthed person thinking that audience enjoy whatever acrobatics he does before a camera. Newshour Debate on that particular evening touched its lows. The moderator Mr. Arnab Goswami and Mr. Suhel Seth owe an apology for making such comments on a national TV program if they think they hail from a decent background.
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