If you are privileged enough in Delhi, then chances are the name Saidulajab means the Garden of Five Senses to you. Delhi government tourism department’s website describes it as a place where “majestic rocks stand silhouetted against the sky, others lie strewn upon the ground in a casual yet alluring display of nature’s sculptural genius. It was the ideal ground on which to realise the concept of a public leisure space that would awaken a sensory response and thereby a sensitivity to the environment”.

On Sunday, six people were crushed to death in a “building” collapse in Saidulajab. There was nothing wrong with the so-called “five senses” of the deceased. Among the dead are one doctor, four engineers and a woman who ran a canteen. They happened to be eating outside a coaching centre for post-graduate admissions when death came crushing down.

What the unfortunate souls lacked was perhaps a sixth sense, which could have helped them avoid a place where death would come without notice. Perhaps it is too much to ask the government to curate a garden which caters to and cultivates the sixth sense to avoid death.

Sunday’s is neither the first nor the last instance in the national capital when the distance between life and death boils down to the proverbial sixth sense. The sky is cloudy; do not go to a “library” in a basement, lest you die in a flood of sewage. There is a storm coming, do not........

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