MUMBAI, India — Not far from where Anusaya Nair lives, a room that measures barely 5 feet by 5 feet, is her main escape: a 9,200-square-foot park, boxed on three sides by a ramshackle garage, tenement housing and an apartment complex. A few women take their evening stroll on the walking track circling the park; elderly companions exchange gossip on a handful of scattered benches; neighborhood children play on a swing set at the back.

Ms. Nair, 43, lives in the Ambedkar Nagar slum, like many of the domestic workers who take care of the area’s high-rise apartment buildings. She spends her days cleaning the homes of more affluent residents of southern Mumbai and regards her twice-a-week visits to the garden as a welcome relief from her routine.

“I’ve liked gardens since I was a child and always try and find some time to visit,” Ms. Nair said. “I like the natural beauty. The mind finds peace.”

Small as it is, the relatively new garden, off First Pasta Lane in the city’s Colaba neighborhood, is a luxury in Mumbai: a green space accessible to anybody, where people can unwind without being jostled. Much of the open space in this fast-growing metropolis of more than 13 million people is inaccessible to typical residents, and much of the rest has been eroded or eliminated by commercial development.