Last February, 2013 was a beautiful holiday month for me. So, I decided to explore maximum place of Delhi with my wife and little daughter. Moderate weather, beautiful sun shines and … I heard a lot about Garden of Five sense, a man made beautiful garden by Delhi tourism, read about the garden on Delhi tourism website and finally we decided to visit the same. This story is about the garden, tourism prospect and other side of utilization. In Hindi I just want to give a line about it “dikhawo pe mat jaoo, apni akal lagao”
A snapshot of the Garden
The Garden is located in Said-ul-Azaib village – South Delhi close to the Mehrauli heritage area. It is built on 20.5 acres with plain and little hillock area, structure with concrete and plenty of flowers. The garden has plenty of parking space, a Cottage Industry show room nearby and a restaurant and food joint inside the garden. Completely managed by Delhi Tourism. There is an option of battery operated car ride in the garden. For a 20-min ride inside the garden, it costs Rs.20 PP. The garden is open all seven days of the week. Winter: 8AM to 6PM & Summer: 8.00AM to 7:00 PM. Ticket is Rs.20 PP.
The good things about the Garden
A beautiful garden close to nature and supposed to stimulate our five sensory organs. The concept is excellent and so is its layout. There are lot of spaces to organize parties/ programs in touch with nature. A good up-market restaurant, battery operated car ride etc.
The bad things about the Garden
We felt the maintenance was not upto the mark. The plants were not trimmed and at places they looked like more of bushes and at other places it was barren land. Some construction was still going. There were no shopping complexes with open shop. Not any good food shop inside premises, yes they have an upmarket restaurant, but for a common people that is very much costlier.
Our journey
A sunny February day (13th Feb, 2013), we decided to visit and reached there around 12 noon. Took our tickets along with car ride tickets… started our journey with a 20 min battery car ride to every corner of the garden, it helped us from where we can start.
So, after ride, we proceeded for roaming around in the garden, rejuvenate ourselves with the scent of flowers, chirping of birds, like the feel of being in heaven. My daughter enjoyed a lot, because she loves flowers and birds. She ran from one side to another and we just followed her. We took a beautiful camel ride, which added to all the fun in the garden.
But suddenly as we stopped in some corner and were wondering where to go beyond, we saw 4-5 teen-aged boys with liquor bottles going up to a more secluded area. Some isolated corners were covered by the love-birds. This left us with mixed feelings. 10 years ago, the garden was open for public, the authorities thought they gifted the Delhiites a garden that would evoke their five senses, but it was not quite doing so. It was not a good experience for us, but we are happy because our daughter enjoyed a lot.
I feel after visiting this garden that Delhi gifts another Budha jayanti Garden to love-birds. I don’t want blame those love birds, because they need some privacy in some quiet place, but it should be a limit. Private security guard also makes some penny by not disturbing them and guarding them. Maintenance is not upto mark and many ways you can find dirty. Litter of the garden was done by literate delhities only. There is no proper drinking water option. A direction mark for toilet is available, but we were not found a toilet. Garden is in a corner of Delhi’s isolated area, in a city where everybody worried about women safety, I will not be surprised if I hear a bad news that inside the garden.
I wrote most of the thing in negative about the garden, but we saw garden was still in construction mode. It is far from corwded delhi, so dificult to reach to there. Best option to go there is take metro upto saket, from saket take a auto, which will asked for 50 ruppes or even more. You can enjoy the garden and atmosphare if you go with group, if you go with ur wife without kids, u may also count with those love-birds.
Welcome aboard Anjan.
Looks like things have remained same, more or less, in last few years. 3 years back, Nisha wrote a story, link below.
https://www.ghumakkar.com/2010/01/28/garden-of-five-senses--the-other-side-of-it/
Hope someone in Delhi Tourism takes note. Thank you for sharing your experience.
May be it remain same and lack of visitor population make the garden haven for love-birds and school buff students. there are no screening for things carrying with you. even we noticed that one guy is so familiar with parking guy that he Q about his new girl friend…. may be he visited with different different GF… we asked official about program, booking . they said due to connectivity and isolated place, people don’t like to book the place. Top of left end garden is more unsecured…. See maximum boy with ……. and right end is haven for love-birds…..
Anjan Sahib, Welcome ! sharing your 1st ghumakkary among this family and brought the facts. Generally, all authors bring the +ve aspects and ignore the deficiencies of the tourist places which should be mentioned in every travelogue.
Informative post with nice pics.
Thanks Tridev Charan for encouraging me, people love to share about the place and their journey, i always feel it is better if we share some bitter experience or not to do kind of information. it will make aware other people to experience the same.
Welcome Anjan.
Nice review of the place. Staying so close to the place, but haven’t visited yet.
Such things are so common in most of places, that we need to overlook/ignore the nuisance – otherwise, there may not to any place for us to go out and enjoy with friends/family or children…
Regarding, liquor bottles in the park…do pay a visit to Gurgaon (I don’t suggest though for the same) – I have seen boys drinking & walking in the street with a beer bottle in hand and yes…in front of Police checkpost at 7:30 p.m….what else would you expect from them. It is already famous for all the bad news and something drastically wrong is waiting to happen for all of us here…we need better policing very fast, before the situation goes out of control.
Thanks Amitava Chatterjee for encouraging me : yes, we have to ignore maximum situation ,otherwise we can’t move out. we enjoy in our terms and they enjoy in their terms, where liqueur play a major role. Now a days little bit worried only when i am with my family, because i am not a he-man or superman to face some bad situation and I know Gurgaon situation very well as a daily commuter to the place.
Welcome Anjan on Ghumakkar.
Thought of visiting Garden of Five Senses came many times in my mind as well but mixed reviews on Internet stopped me every time. Your post has now confirmed my doubts.
Thnaks Deependra Solanky : I am not discouraging people to go, just share my feelings. u can enjoy the garden and really five senses, but u have to ignore nuisance.
Hi Anjan,
Welcome!
There have been some posts on Garden of Five Senses and it seems it has not changed much. Walking distance from the Saket metro station on the way to the Garden you can see the mighty Qila Rai Pithora walls.
I think the garden has some fair during the winters. Maybe will visit in Feb/Mar when there will be flowers blooming.
Nice start to Delhi attractions. Hope to read more in the future.
Hi Nirdesh: yes, may be not changes so much and feel someday we may get news that “police raid on GOFS and detained 50 couple”…… place is quite isolated and people using the same for benefit.
We visited in February and flowers were blooming. authority said now there are less fair due to peoples unaware or distance from central Delhi even-tough good connectivity of metro. I come to know more about Delhi from ur post and thanks for the same.