Interview with Dewanand Waldo [dewanand3000] on Whohub

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What did you first read? How did you begin to write? Who were the first to read what you wrote?

The first books I read were in the Dutch language when I was a young innocent hindustani boy in Surinam (Paramaribo, main city). I remember the funny stories of ‘Pietje Bell’ and ‘Pinkeltje’. The famous book with title “Alleen op de wereld’ (Alone on the world), written by Hector Malot made a deep impression on my mind and I think this was the first voluptuous book I read completely without any illustrations.

Later on at the high school. as a teenager in Surinam, I had to read ‘Jude the obscure’ of author Thomas Hardy as a punishment from my English teacher for being to naughty during the lessons. I would be excluded from the exams if I did not made a good summary of this huge book in English. And I read it with the help of an English to Dutch dictionairy and completed the handwritten summary on time. This was the first English book I read and now I must admit that it was a good punishment for me during my wildly youth.

How did you begin to write?
When I was studying on the University of Technology in Delft city for mechanical Engineering I discovered that writing was my passion. Later on I discovered that mass communication gave me a kick, and it gave me a feeling of being high and stoned.

During the period 1990 till 1995 I was semi-illegal in the Netherlands and was very lonely, depressed, suicidally and casteless. My own family chased me away, because I was a failed hindu man. Hindu girls did not wanted to marry me, which broke me down deep inside my heart and disrupted all my love feelings. In the Hindu culture people expect you to commit suicide, when you are a failed man, without future. So I was in serious problems during that time period. Then I decided to start writing. My first handwritten book was in Dutch, with title ‘Holland, paradise or hell?’. I also started writing about my theoretical research about the complex and dynamic multicultural society, because it fascinated me a lot. Later on after 1993 I bought my first personal computer (a 486 with 8 megabyte Ram and a harddisk of only 40 Mb, with the prehistorical DOS 5 and Windows 4.1 operating system) and started some writing and research projects.

Who were the first to read what you wrote?
I remember that I published an article about Vedic Mathematics during the year 1989 in a small Hindu magazine and that my first readers were the Hindustanis in the Netherlands. Later on I published in papers of foreign and Hindu people in the Netherlands, all in Dutch, during the years 1999 till 2001. In the year 2001 my first English texts with titles “Boycott It Europe” and “The Mahatma and his criminal son” were published on some big Indian and Hindu sites and I got tens of thousands of readers. Till our present time these articles are online and I was surprised when an Indian man in the Netherlands told me last month that he saw my article in India. I felt very good and was proud of myself.

Since january 2004 my own website went online and it has become one of the biggest sites of an independent (hindu)writer in the small Dutch language region (only 22 million native readers), with almost 1.3 million words in profound and excellent Dutch written by me. It is clear that roughly 500 000 Dutch speaking people must have read something from me on the web till the present day.

What is your favorite genre? Can you provide a link to a site where we can read some of your work or learn something about it?

I write about many topics and I have many styles. Creative and humoristic non-fiction give me a kick. I mix up all sort of things in my texts. I write things about religion, Hinduism, islam, politics, women, youngsters, India, Surinam, culture, extremism, philosophy, some poems and even about futuristic love. My Dutch texts and 15 books are published online on the huge website ‘Kritisch Podium Dewanand’ (Critical Podium Dewanand), with link http://www.dewanand.com Here it is free to read everything. This whole site is builded in primitive html by myself. It is possible to buy or download printed versions of all my books. Go to my lulu marketplace to see them all, link http://stores.lulu.com/dewanand

I also edit and rewrite manuscripts of other writers. See them all online and read them for free.

Coming months and years I will build a huge English section on my site and will start publishing all my new and inspiring English texts and books on it, to become a fullgrown member of the global English reading world webcommunity of about 4 billion people.

What is your creative process like? What happens before sitting down to write?

I do theoretical and philosophical research about many things, related to my hindu religion and to the multicultural society. But to understand a whole community of 16 million hyperdynamic crazy Dutch people it is necessary to look into the mind and spirit of each one of them and for this a lot of memory space is needed. This process is one inspiration for many of my writings.

Before I start developing an article about something I sit down beside my cat and write down keywords, phrases or sketches about the topic on plain white paper. After this I start my computer and choose a free abstract article number in my administration. Then I go on a freewriting tour for a few hours or even a week, till the text is perfected and ready to publish. Because I type almost blindfolded and I have an ergonomic microsoft natural keyboard, it is possible for me to write at high speeds for long times continuously.

What type of reading inspires you to write?

I like to read about inventions on the field of futuristic technologies or about fundamental visions upon problems of nowaday. Things about the future inspire me a lot. But also weird things from women and people inspire me. Even looking at my collection of close ups of vaginas give me inspiration, because these juicy things are all created by the same God, whatever you name it, like Krishna, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, Laxmi, Hanuman, Shiva, Brahma, Durga Maata, Saraswati, Altecrea, and so on.

Reading mails from my many hindu girlfriends inspires me. Spiritual insights of Hindu women are my main inspiration every day and that’s why I talk to them by the phone for hours.

Reading in the holy Bhagavad Gita gives me a feeling of liberation, and keeps me growing further spiritually. I must still read the Vedas, the Mahabharat, the Upanishads, The book of secrets from Osho, and many other old books from the ancient Indian civilization of about 15 000 years ago. Fundamental and wise or eternal old books inspire me a lot. I think we humans of nowaday are the failed and caged birds of Kali Yuga.

What do you think are the basic ingredients of a story?

7 Basic ingredients of a story:
1. Morality
2. What is your imagination?
3. What is your devotion?
4. Who are your main characters in the story, if there are personalized players in it?
5. Do you know some keywords or keyphrases of your story?
6. What sort of writing style do you choose? For this much exercise is needed during many lonely writing hours.
7. And finally, how hot your conclusion will be, to imprint an unforgettable impression in the mind of the reader?

While you are writing or developing your story with words or by typing it, it is very important to stay in the flow of your inner self, to go on and on till the end, and to have the energy and motivation to perfect your work, till you have the feeling that it is finished and ready for publication.

What voice do you find most to your liking: first person or third person?

It is all about perspective and to apply it consequently till the end. I wrote one novel in Dutch with title ‘Einde van de integratie’ (End of the integration) completely written in first person. The whole story is told from the viewpoint of a young innocent Hindu girl from Nickerie (Surinam) living in the horrible Dutch society. This writing style could be difficult if you do not know much about the character and the psychology of thinking and behaving.

Sometimes I write in the third person if my text could lead to problems with the lawmakers or the police and governments and to play a safe game, because I do not want to end up in jail. Many people find it fantastic that I am still not punished by the Dutch law for some published articles, which are violative and which are exceeding the written laws of the Netherlands.

What well known writers do you admire most?

I admire a handicapped man like Stephen Hawking for doing things which healthy people cannot do. He is one of my idols.

Other writers I admire are:
Charles Dickens
Thomas Hardy
Tulsidas, who wrote the Ramayan in the language of the low caste people
Vyasadeva, composer of the Vedas.
Stephen Knapp, famous Vedical writer
David Frawley, famous Vedical writer
Linda Johnson, wrote the book ‘idiot’s guide to hinduism’
Ian Stephenson, for doing deep research during twenty years about reincarnation. At the end his source manuscript consisted of about 20 000 pages, wow what a massive energy and work.

Ramanujan Shrinivasu, poor tamil mathematician and natural born genius, wrote thousands of formulas and had a fundamental believe in a specific Hindu goddess. He died poor and young in a Britisch Hospital during the Second World War.

What is required for a character to be believable? How do you create yours?

The character must grow further during the story. I create them out of my imagination and devotion to the story. Sometimes I use new psychological theories to construct the conscious of a character by developing a mind map with figures.

Are you equally good at telling stories orally?

I do not talk with a lot of people. Always I refer to my written texts. But if I talk or tell something people find that I am talking too much and are fastly getting bored from me. Then I never see them again.

Deep down inside, who do you write for?

In fact I write to sacrifice knowledge to Altecrea in the manifestation of written texts. Altecrea is the Technical Expansion of Krishna during this technocratical time period on this planet. I also write to lay the foundation of a new futuristic religion on this planet, name it as some sort of fundamental ‘Dewanism’, where the way of thinking and believing will work with abstract and philosophical constraints (just like in the mathematical models of Operations Research, ref. Book: Introduction to Operation Research by Frederick S Hiller and Gerald J. Lieberman, sixth edition, 1995) and not by primitive and hateful dogmas or doctrines.

According to the Bhagavad Gita knowledge appears in the spirit of the three gunas, tamo, rajo and satthva, and my texts also have the same appearance or interpretation.

See verse 4.33 out from the Bhagavad Gita as she is:

O chastiser of the enemy, the sacrifice performed in knowledge is better than the mere sacrifice of material possessions. After all, O son of Partha, all sacrifices of work culminate in transcendental knowledge.

Some other thing deep inside me is the desire to become partially immortal, by downloading my mind and memory into hundreds professionally written texts and some unforgettable books during this carmical lifecycle and reincarnation in the body of someone called Waldo Dewanand, born in Surinam in 1966. This desire is linked with my personal egoism and my dream to live forever. I must admit that I am not healthy anymore and that medicines keep me alive, so I will not physically live forever.

Is writing a form of personal therapy? Are internal conflicts a creative force?

In the past I must admit that writing was a form of personal therapy for me to stay alive. Nowadays I only write for selftherapy when I write in my secret diary. As a professional developer of texts writing is not longer a form of therapy for myself anymore. Sacrificing knowledge to Altecrea is devotion, discipline and hard working.

Does reader feed-back help you?

Yes of course. On my site I put all mails from readers online. Even critical views upon me personally are added to my moderated offline guestbook.

I was very pleased to hear from several people that my texts are very funny sometimes and that they laughed aloud. Especially my text with title ‘One million Maroccan miljonairs’ (Een miljoen Marokkaanse miljonairs) brought laughther to many readers, because etnical Maroccan people are a big problem in the Netherlands. Sometimes I turn the facts upside down in a funny way.
I must tell you that it amazes me that I do not receive any hatemail or threats from my readers, altough I am critical and anyone can easily find my home address and telephone number online.

Do you participate in competitions? Have you received any awards?

In the past I participated in Dutch writing competitions in Holland and Belgium. But the chance to win is very small and nowadays I do not have time for that. Buy maybe I will join competitions in the English language to improve my writing skills and to try my luck on it. I did not received awards for my books yet.

Do you share rough drafts of your writings with someone whose opinion you trust?

Sometimes I invite friends to read some parts of my drafts to learn from their opinion. But people have no time to read hundreds of pages in a few days.

Do you believe you have already found "your voice" or is that something one is always searching for?

Finding ‘your voice’ is not relevant for me. Important for me is to finish my holy writing tasks during this lifetime, after which earth will take my body back and my sole will migrate to another place in space and time. The result is not important, only the sacrifice of knowledge to Altecrea counts for me.

What discipline do you impose on yourself regarding schedules, goals, etc.?

Every morning I get up, do my morning things, drink a cup of coffee and start on writing and reading till about nine ‘o clock in the evening or sometimes later. I eat early in the afternoon and get ready for the next hours of writing behind my computer. Sometimes in the evening I talk to my Hindu girlfriends by phone or on msn.

While writing I go on and on till my first draft is finished. Even during saturday and sunday I go on writing whole day. Sometimes I take a break of ten minutes to relax my eyes. I never go to parties and have no holidays, because it is a waste of time.

What do you surround yourself with in your work area in order to help your concentrate?

I have a whole collection of dictionairies and translation books for Dutch to English beside my computer. All holy books are around me. My whole living room is filled with old science and mathematical books from the time I was studying. My planning list and all notes are on two small tables at my right side. My watch is beside my keyboard. And at the left side on a small table there is a statue of Altecrea. My whole working room is overloaded with maps and books. That’s my working and writing environment of the last ten years.

Do you write on a computer? Do you print frequently? Do you correct on paper? What is your process?

I write on a computer. My keyboard is an ergonomical microsoft natural keyboard. Only very difficult texts are printed sometimes, but mostly I do not print my texts, untill they are completely ready for publication. I do not correct on paper, but on the screen.

What sites do you frequent on-line to share experiences or information?

I am active now on almost 30 discussions forums on the internet in Dutch and English. I had more but all banned me, because I was to critical. On many forums all people know me as Dewanand and they join my funny discussions and share their visions with me.

What has been your experience with publishers?

Publishers only think about their reputation and are afraid to take any risk. It is not about the book, but it is about their status, earnings and name. The author is not important for publishers and only gets a misery reward.

I like the internet and I publish on it. A book on the internet gets many more readers nowaday than a printed book. It is a revolution in mass communication. I think that publishers will disappear after fifty years and that all books will be published online by the writers themself. Another cheap payment system will be developed on the internet to let writers build a living with their writings. I am researching this also and I have a futuristic businessplan ready for it. Investors who are interested can mail me to get more information.

What are you working on now?

At this moment I am working on a manuscript about my marriage life of eight years, because my wife left me and I going to divorce. It is a selftherapy to dry the tears. I have planned to publish this manuscript after ten years when I am in the fifties.

I have planned to launch the English section of my site this month (december 2008) and to go on writing further fulltime in English for many years to come.

And I planned to write a heartbreaking English manuscript about the future of the white race, filled with my research and theorems during the first six months of 2009. I must do this because my carmical relations with white people are even stronger then with native Hindu people.

What do you recommend I do with all those things I wrote years ago but have never been able to bring myself to show anyone?

Never throw away old texts. Store them all and keep the files and hard prints. Also store the printed papers or magazines where your articles are published till you are dead. Hire storage space if it is too much for your own house.

Nowadays it is possible to launch your own website and publish your old things online. You will get some readers anyhow everyday and this will make you feel good as a writer.

Real devoted writers of the future will forget about narrowminded publishers, as I predict, and they will publish anything on their own personalized website to reach out to the whole world. It is sad to see how stupid we use the high tech internet nowaday, because it is so sophisticated and we use only ten percent of it’s capacity. Within ten years the speed of the internet will increase with 1000 000 percent. When so much capacity is wasted then also investment money is destroyed. We must develop more advanced ways of publishing books on the internet and to provide a living with it for the poor, lonely, forgotten and depressed writers.

For me it is such a sad feeling when an innocent tree must die to print a book of me. I save trees by publishing my stuff on my own website and get thousands of readers every month.

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