Delhi Darshan II - Garden of Five Senses

I am back in Delhi, Gurgaon to be precise, almost after seven years and the place has changes beyond recognition. I often find myself struggling to make my way through the maze created partially by time and partially by upcoming constructions especially the metro. During my last stint in NCR, I do not remember exploring it too much, the reasons I am unable to think. But now after having a taste of wandering in the south, coupled with the fact that I have bandwidth on hand, I keep looking out for interesting things that can be done in NCR.

One such search led me to Garden of Five senses, that I visited almost a month back when it was hosting a festival and appropriately a flower festival. This relatively new garden is located in Said-Ul-Azaib village, in the Mehrauli heritage area, and to reach this place you have to crawl through a quite a bit of traffic, and apparently some time down the line, a metro line should take you straight to the garden. It is spread in about 20 acres of land, not too big for a garden, but then not too small considering the location it is in. There are interesting animal figures created with steel and hedging plants, displaying the topiary skills. There is bit of touch of Mughal era, through terraced garden with slow flowing water, there are walkways that spiral across the garden and at times can create the feeling of being lost and loosing your way and there are various variety of plants. There are paths created to pamper your sense of smell, where you can walk and smell the surrounding plants. The natural terrain provides a good backdrop of rocks, you can actually climb some of them and get an over the top view of seemingly distant Delhi. There are occasional art pieces scattered around the garden, mostly made out of metal, and times of clay and stone. There is a solar park that displays various vehicles and equipments that run on solar energy.

Garden of Five senses is not only interestingly named, but it has also been planned as a venue for public functions like hosting musical shows in the perfect natural surroundings. There is a small amphitheatre built with rustic sandstone tiles which can be used for events with small audience. There are fountains that can provide respite from heat during summers and also provide a romantic backdrop for musical evenings. Besides cultural events, this place is also popularly used for food festivals, tourism festivals and dandiya.

To make the place commercially viable, there are a couple of high end restaurants in the premises and retail space which is still under construction. A few stores already operating out of this place are up market ones, belonging to designers and some with interesting concepts. There was one store with had merchandise made out of old newspapers, all kinds of things including curtains and stuff for daily use. I would look forward to more such concept stores, though they are awfully expensive for an average pocket.

There is an entry ticket which is quite nominal, but once you are inside the place appears to be designed to cater to the upper section of the society leading to a bit of dichotomy. As we went when a flower festival was going on, we got an opportunity to see and click a lot of colorful flowers which were in full bloom. On a lazy day, if this area is not too far from where you stay, you can go for a stroll or to have a nice meal in the natural surroundings.