Bournemouth - Day 4

As promised here I am with another eventful day to talk about! Today, we took an hour's bus ride (driven by Adrin our camera instructor) for a special outstation shoot to Southampton - 37 miles from Bournemouth - UK 's busiest and most successful ports. Southampton is a natural deep-water harbour and its unique double tide allows unrestricted access for the world's largest vessel with facilities to handle virtually any type of cargo, making it the most preferred port for a wide range of customers and traders.

Our first stop was ' Unity 101 Community radio station '; a local, independent and voluntary organization which broadcasts Asian and ethnic community music and cultures to over 50,000 listeners. Ram Kalyan a.k.a. "Kelly" is the Station Manager of Unity 101 Community radio and the station reflects the needs and interests of local communities and aims to bring knowledge and understanding so listeners can participate more fully in a cohesive society. At the radio station Neha Bhatnagar and Deborshi Chaki turned into radio jockeys and gave us a glimpse of their completely new avatars. Being On Air for 10 minutes, they fell in love with the mouth piece and couldn't get enough of talking about apna Bollywood - the topic they were given by the show producer and anchor Srirupa Mukherjee. We had to literarily pull them out of the studio. Community radio is really an interesting medium which can make it big in India if implemented properly as Unity 101 does in the UK.

Our next stop was ' Oxford Street's Poppadom Express ' ; a famous restaurant where curry lovers across Hampshire enjoy a feast of spicy delights. This modern eatery is one of three branches across the south that offers tasty and unusual variations of authentic Indian dishes. As soon as you enter the Poppadom Express you are greeted by a cozy bar which tempts you with some appetizing pre-dinner drinks or you could simply put your feet up (not literally or the Brits would throw a fit) and relax after a satisfying meal. The dining area is spacious and inviting, and the staff is friendly and helpful.

After a few days of food cooked by us the Express turned out to be a blessing in disguise and in no time all of us were drooling to get a taste of the delicious, mouth watering Indian food. But, even before we could think of laying our hands on the food, Gail Foley; our course director had a long list of instructions about how to shoot a story in the restaurant. Being a kind soul, she understood our temptation for Indian food and let us explore. Well, let me begin! The best way to start your Popaddam journey is with a glass of house white wine, which costs £3.60 for a large glass, or a pint of lager for about £2.50 along with some fresh, crunchy poppadoms served with dips and sauces like mango chutney and chopped onions. But most of us except 'tam bram' Veer Raghav; (who tried hard to keep away) weren't interested in having a drink.

OK! so to start off we ventured at the starters section - an array of about 12 dishes to choose from, offering everything from mince samosas to onion bhajis. Diners can also opt for tandoori broccoli cauliflower - florets of the vegetables flavoured with garlic, yoghurt, black pepper and cardamom - or Jhinga Til Tinka, which includes sesame seed coated king prawns dipped in ginger, garlic and a lime and chilli marinade.

To move on, the main course offered traditional dishes such as Vindaloo, madras and korma meals, but the more adventurous can dabble in Venison Rogan Josh or chicken stuffed with olives and pimento. The Paneer Lababdar comes highly recommended, cooked in a rich, smooth gravy and is definitely worth a taste.For vegetarians, a delicious delight is Paneer Masala, a mixture of exotic paneer cooked in smooth, rich flavoured gravy. A suitable accompaniment is Tarka Daal, lentils cooked with garlic and garnished with a whole red chilli. Its soft texture and mild flavour complement other more spicy main dishes. To polish off this finger licking meal we opted for vegetarian pulao instead of the plain basmati rice which was tempered with cumin, fried onions and fresh coriander garnish.

Delicious! An afternoon nap would have taken us to heaven! But were denied.

Now that I have tickled your taste buds with quite a detailed description, it's time to get back to what we were actually there for. The shoot! Neha and I wanted to shoot a story - basically a profile of an Indian cook from Lucknow who has been working in UK for the last 6 years and has stayed away from his family. But to our chargin the chef sounded so bored about the whole idea that we decided to drop the story. Gail came to our rescue with an idea about doing a story on the florists right on the street occupied by restaurant. The lady looking after the shop was kind enough to talk to us about herself and gave us time to do the story. The story was colourful and deserved to be shot at length with a lot of other elements. So with a promise to be back on Saturday we left the lady to tend to her flowers.

On our way back we grabbed some really interesting Indian food like Chapattis. Tonight it would be chapattis with Alloo Gobi and the chef for the night at House no. 29 is Jajati Karan. Veer Raghav cooked some rice for himself and me as eventually we were South Indians and had to have our dose of Rice and how can Yogurt be far behind, waiting patiently for us in the fridge. Well quite a mouthwatering trip it was. It's time again for me to push off. That's it for now.

Indian Journalists & Correspondants at Bournemouth University