Vikram Chatwal may be the closest thing us ABCD's have to a certified Desi Rock Star (right down to the de rigeuer photo op w/ a Hilton sister). Gawker's got a tracker link on him just to keep up with his gossip (thanks Super Jagjit!) and the NY Observer recently saw fit to run a feature length article on his exploits -
Vikram Chatwal is not your usual rich Manhattan playboy. For starters, he has never cut his hair and he wears a turban, in keeping with his Sikh heritage. And while he does all that other playboy stuff?dating fashion models, tooling around town in an Aston Martin, running up an $11,500 bar tab in a nightclub, hanging out with Bill Clinton?he strikes many Manhattan night-crawlers as having something extra, something "spiritual", if you will.Of course, one of the cool things about being a rocker is the ability to make totally non-PC observations about the different women you've, uh, experienced -Mr. Chatwal will tell you he plans to be the first Sikh billionaire. His father says: "Why not? This is New York City; he?s just 31 years old; he?s got a base to start with. The problem right now is, he?s only spending 30 percent of his time towards business. The day he starts spending 70 percent of his time, within two or three years he?ll make it."
...Mr. Chatwal gets some good-natured ribbing from his family about his penchant for nightlife. Earlier this month, he attended Puff Daddy?s birthday party in Morocco, flying with the birthday boy on a 767 lent by the King of Morocco.
I knew he?d dated lots of women; I asked what his favorite nationality was.
"Brazilian," he said. "It?s not just the fact that they?re beautiful, it?s the whole vibe?the language itself drips sexuality. It?s Italian squared."Since I had an international playboy sitting right in front of me, I decided to take advantage of the fact and started rattling off nationalities.
"Russian women are sort of deal-makers; they are the smartest business people I?ve met," he said. "Indian women talk about marriage and kids before they?ve had the first date. British women ? I?ve never met women who act so civilized but are so crazy?the craziest bunch of women I?ve ever met. Just nuts. Real mental.
"I?ve been around the world," he said. "The best thing about French women is the way they speak English. That accent is awesome. But they?re slightly pretentious, snobs. But when you get to know them, they become quite cute and cuddly."
Manhattan women?
"Very calculating," he said. "They?ll do their homework before, and everything is about what?s in it for them. You can rarely relax."
But when all's said and done, hold on to your panties ladies, there's a chance this dude's coming back to the East-Side -
He said he sees himself settling down with a Caribbean woman or someone from the Far East, where, he said, "they have sort of a traditional sense of understanding what a woman?s duty is, and what a man?s duty is, to be in a relationship together. If you date a woman from Manhattan, you feel like the woman in the relationship."
The fun apparently started early -
"It was right when hip-hop started?I became like a Sikh homeboy," he said. "Wearing thick laces, Run-D.M.C.-style chains. I got busted a couple times for shoplifting, because that was the cool thing to do."
