The evening doesn't begin with speeches or a stage. Instead, it begins with a sun that doesn't quite set.
Shining against Ahmedabad's orange-pink washed sky just before dusk, the Eternal Sun installation grabs my attention almost immediately. Along the kilometre-and-a-half-long promenade, glowing figurines reveal themselves one by one, as though leading me to the magical landscapes that await.
Created by light artist Shreya Singh, the whole scene feels less like an installation and more like something you've walked into midway—calm, a little surreal and completely unhurried. The light reflects onto the water and the kayak trails, stretching shadows in a way that makes me slow down. For a city girl like me, this is the kind of calm I didn't know I needed.
And then the music kicks in.
I look up, and there's a band playing live music from atop the sample villa, almost blending into the skyline itself. Singer Anoushka Maskey's voice carries first — soft and easy, the kind you don't want to talk over. A sitar and saxophone follow as Murli and his band take centre stage, building a symphony that travels across the water and through the space.
Nothing about the night feels rushed, almost as though a precursor of my days ahead at By The Waters, an ultra-luxury waterfront villa project by Suryam Developers in Ahmedabad's Govindpura.
Set across 100 acres, By The Waters is Suryam Developers' most ambitious project yet. But there's no rush to impress. The idea is simple: to create a place where the environment leads, and everything else follows.
Chairman G.M. Patel traces the company's beginnings back to 1993, but the foundation goes further back. His family was in the business of manufacturing electrical motors — an industry built on precision, discipline and zero margin for error. When he moved into real estate, that same engineering mindset remained. Suryam Developers' early projects in east Ahmedabad reflected that thinking: homes focused on getting the basics right, often going beyond what buyers expected at the time.
Over the years, though, his idea of value shifted. "After the success of The Banyan and Suryam Repose, we realised that the discerning global Indian was looking for something that didn't exist in Ahmedabad yet: true waterfront living that combined the exclusivity and seclusion of a resort with the permanence of a home," Patel tells Robb Report India, while speaking about the vision behind the project. "By The Waters was born from the desire to redefine what luxury living could look like in the city," he says.
For director Ishan Patel, the concept was born from a sense of responsibility to carry on the family legacy and take his father's foundational dreams to global heights. "As an architect by training, I've always been obsessed with the intersection of space and emotion. I wanted to move away from the traditional gated community and instead create an immersive, living piece of art," Ishan explains.
To bring this vision to life, Suryam Developers collaborated with some of the architecture world's most visionary minds — bringing together SCDA from Singapore for their architectural purity; Design Module, Ahmedabad for their storytelling masterplan and landscape narrative; and Witteveen+Bos, Netherlands, for their world-class water engineering. It was a deliberate move to bridge this vision with international innovation.
It's one thing to hear big names coming together; it's another to see their expertise come to life on the ground.
The project is limited to 99 ultra-luxe private waterfront estates, a decision that immediately changes the pace of the place, given the vast area. The layout is more open, with the water guiding how everything is placed — homes, pathways, views. At the centre of it all is a 72,000-square-yard water body that shapes the entire project.
I find myself stopping by the waters, immersed in its beauty. Snapping me out of my trance, the team reveals that a system is designed to keep the water clean without relying heavily on chemicals.
Quite honestly, I don't see or comprehend this engineering. What I do feel, though, are the results. The air feels cooler. There's a steady breeze moving through the site. Even as I stand still, I notice the difference. Instead of feeling built-up or enclosed, the space feels open — as though the landscape is doing most of the work.
That sense of openness, I later learn, extends into the homes.
The villas vary in size, with 10 different layouts ranging from 6,000 to 20,000 sq ft. But what stands out isn't scale; it's how the spaces flow. I step into the sample villa, conjuring up my next dream home.
Large glass panels frame the water, blurring the lines between inside and outside. One detail stands out: the flooring from the living area runs straight through to the deck, slipping under the glass and continuing outwards onto the pool deck. The house, it seems, extends into the landscape itself.
Inside, the approach is just as restrained.
Designed by Shaili Kastia's bySalt, the interiors feature neutral tones and soft textures. The water and the changing light keep the ambience subtly alive. "We've choreographed the interiors in a way that the shifting light dictates the evolving mood of the home without the need for artifice. It is a study in 'barefoot luxury' that offers a home that feels both grand in its proportions and intimate in its soul," Kastia says.
As the evening settles in, the pace doesn't change. People move through the space without any real urgency — pausing along the promenade, stopping by the water, drifting in and out of conversation. The music lingers in the background, never quite taking over.
And overhead, that glowing Eternal Sun still lingers.