RAW

Personal Inspiration for the Story

 

The first inspiration for the story of “RAW” was Tom, as he is Ukrainian and living the story of his family and friends overseas. Tom has been tirelessly dedicated to the project, barely sleeping with his full-time job, acting classes, and late night rehearsals & meetings. He has been unwaveringly holding the vision that this film will be made with excellence. 

 

However, as this project developed, I realized I was writing from a personal experience that I had buried and almost forgotten. Luckily, I do not have PTSD from a life-threatening terrorist attack  in India which I witnessed and was a victim of, but it does live as an energy imprint that I shall always have with me. I realized during this process an emotional memory was surfacing and I was writing from the time and place of this event. See, I know the overwhelming gratitude that you feel when you see a rescue convoy arrive to extricate friends, loved ones, and yourself from a terrorist attack. 

 

I was in a most peaceful, idyllic garden in an Ashram in India when an explosion went off on the other side of a wall dividing the garden and the dorms. There was no thinking, just the rare instinct of good-hearted people that followed when everyone in the garden ran toward the blast and danger instead of away. On the other side of the wall we found one of the Ashram Gurka guards blown in half, his intestine’s spilling out of his stomach. The other guard had his leg by his head in a backbend sort of way and both looked dead. Suddenly, they both gained consciousness and the screaming of sheer blinding pain and shock started. We were in the middle of nowhere and the worst thing was the feeling of helplessness of not being able to treat the poor fellow. We pushed his guts back into his stomach, loaded him into a car on a board, and off he went to the nearest hospital 3 hours away. He bled out on the way to the hospital.  

 

Then there was the pit of not knowing what was going to happen next. Again, the helplessness. All I wanted to know was where are the guns and show me how to use them. 

 

They didn’t want to evacuate us in the middle of the night as they had no idea what was waiting outside the Ashram gate and couldn’t make an assessment of what opposing forces lurked in the dark. We had to wait the night out. I remember the intensity of my adrenaline and my resolve to fight. My senses were on total alert, but I was more enraged, angry at this senseless violence than scared. I could feel in my backbone that I would not go down without a fight, whatever that meant. Where was our stash of guns and who was going to teach me to use a gun? That was the mantra in my head. But there were no guns and the 2 highly trained Gurkha guards were dead or dying. We were helpless. Thoughts of how to escape into the mountain behind the Ashram ran through my thoughts. 

 

The next day the silence of the ashram was broken by the wailing of the wife and mother of the Gurkha guard who had been summoned to receive the news that their son and husband died. The Muslim prayers from the mosque next door mixed with the cries. 

 

Then through the gates came a convoy of police trucks and we were told they were evacuating us. We fled to a safe location and there was no more violence. 

 

What sticks with me the most, burned into me by the anger of what I witnessed, was the feeling of helplessness. Helplessness in not knowing how to aid the man with his guts spilling out. Helpless that I didn’t know how to defend myself. 

 

I vowed to go home and study pipe bombs so I could recognize them on site, learn how to shoot, and learn how to give emergency aid. When I arrived home in the US I was never so happy to be home. The world was changing and I truly felt it would never be the same as when I was a child and being an American was a shield, protection itself. Now it could render one a target. The terrorists wanted to extort money out of the Ashram when they learned many Westerners were staying there. 

 

Writing “RAW” first had immediate meaning due to the current events unfolding in Ukraine, as we wish to support Ukraine in their sovereignty and freedom. But also, “RAW” is a universal story of war, that storytellers tell in so many different tales to inspire, provoke thought and conscious action, so that we can find a new way through conflict as we evolve as a species. We must not forget to strive to evolve; and the relation between art influencing culture and culture influencing art is invaluable. It can be lifesaving, as the great art of the masters was for me on one my trips to Italy, but that’s’ another story for another time.