SVARAM Sound Garden

An outdoor garden of oversized handmade instruments - chimes, stone and metal percussion, gongs, steps that sing when you walk them - which visitors are meant to play rather than look at. SVARAM began in 2003 as a rural development and instrument-making project, and the UN initiative Music as a Global Resource named it among its first fifty projects worldwide. Hour-long guided slots run through the day at roughly Rs 120–150 a head: twenty minutes or so of explanation, then the group plays freely. Open about 9:30am–12:30pm and 2:30–4:30pm, Sunday mornings only; the showroom keeps Monday to Saturday.

Few visitors think to book it: an hour with your hands on the instruments, and nobody minds the result