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[Alexandr Korol]

– Everything you are writing now in “Alternative History,” you need to explain to people, break it down, and speak about all these books.

That’s how it is. So, I told him again:

– I don’t want to. People are so mean, so ungrateful.

And he said something like:

– What does it matter? It doesn’t concern you in any way. Those who need it will understand. And those who don’t understand now will later want to – will really want to.

That’s more or less how he put it. And, in principle, he has been telling me this very often for the past year, almost every time we talk.
What happened next? After that, my first adventure began. At first, I was talking with a tour guide in Nepal when I was still in the center of Kathmandu, in the most touristy and popular places. Naturally, we started talking about Hindu gods and deities, about Buddha. I really enjoyed the conversation because when I spoke, he was surprised – how did I know all this? A white guy, and on top of that, Russian. I told him that, in fact, I had only learned all of this recently. A year ago, I basically knew nothing and didn’t understand any of it. We talked about the different deities, but in essence, there are mainly three. And aside from those three, there are also female deities, but the point is that they all have their reincarnations, their versions. For example, we see one deity, then a second, then a third – it can be depicted in different forms, even as an animal, but it is still the same being, like the wife of Vishnu. And the same goes for Vishnu – one deity, another, a third, a tenth, but they are all still Vishnu, just in different variations. I was speaking with the tour guide in English. It was interesting when he would show a deity and say, “This is his transport,” referring to the animal beneath the god. Some stand on a bird, others on something else, each on their own symbolic creature. Just like Shiva or Ganesha, they also have different forms in which they are depicted. Shiva, for example, can also appear as different animals. We discussed all of this, and he said that people sincerely and truly