TURBAN COWBOY TIES KNOT. Big fat Indian wedding for Manhattan playboy THIS WAY, LADIES ...

BEFORE AN A-LIST crowd that included the Clintons and Sean (Diddy) Combs, New York's so-called Turban Cowboy yesterday kissed his playboy lifestyle goodbye with a multimillion dollar wedding blowout in India.

The Big Fat Indian wedding of man-about-Manhattan Vikram Chatwal, 35, to model Priya Sachdev attracted a flashy crowd that flew to India from around the globe aboard chartered jets.

The week-long celebration was capped by a color-splashed Indian marriage ceremony.

Spread across three cities, with polo matches and lots of celebrities, the megabucks marriage could be one of the priciest bashes ever thrown in India, though Chatwal arranged a traditional wedding.

"I have been living 35 years outside," he said. "Now I want to show what it means to be Indian, what India is."

The son of Sant Chatwal, who owns the Bombay Palace on W. 52nd St. and several midtown Manhattan hotels, Vikram Chatwal is famous in New York society circles for his flashy lifestyle.

He parties with Diddy, jet sets around the world on private planes and is never far from gorgeous women. Now he's married to one.
A family friend found Sachdev for Chatwal, who once dated supermodel Gisele Bundchen and sports a "G" tattoo in her honor.

"It was my husband who spotted her at a party and when they met, they liked each other. A lot," socialite Queenie Dhody told Britain's Guardian newspaper.
Chatwal, who dabbled in movies and had a bit part in the Ben Stiller movie "Zoolander," now runs the boutique Dream Hotel on W. 55th St. that's part of his family's empire

In 2002, his dad was among the city's leading deadbeats, owing more than $2 million in taxes on a building on Second Ave. in Manhattan. Sant Chatwal was also one of the leading donors to political action committees backing Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign, for which he contributed $210,000.
According to federal election records, Vikram Chatwal has contributed $40,000 to committees supporting Clinton's first Senate bid and Dick Gephardt's failed run for President.

Sunday, February 19th 2006, 6:54AM
Source:Daily News

BY JOSE MARTINEZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER With News Wire Services