Was the Forbes magazine photographer taking the piss when he asked Analjit Singh to pose against a Franschhoek mountain backdrop with his turban, nearly coiled like an Indian snake charmer, fitting snugly into the landscape. And talk about shit eating grins.

Lions have been in the news a lot of late following the demise of Cecil, poached by an American dentist in Zimbabwe. Franschhoek’s latest investor, Analjit Singh, seems to be related. “Leeu is our name [in South Africa]. In Afrikaans it means lion, just as Singh in Sanskrit means lion, says Singh. For the record, the number plate on his Lexus SW is, no surprise, LEEU 1.”

I wonder if Analjit is Sanskrit for Cecil as our Indian investor seems to be a latter day Cecil John Rhodes. Let’s hope Johann Rupert, a Franschhoek neighbour, doesn’t fling any metaphorical poo at him after reading Forbes’ opening paragraph.

We step out of Analjit Singh’s blue Lexus into a picture postcard. Such is the scenic beauty greeting us. Singh is dressed in blue–shirt, turban and Nehru jacket–and poses with the panoramic mountains, also blue, in the background. We are standing under a benevolent April sun in Leeu Estates, Singh’s farm in Franschhoek, a picturesque wine town in South Africa’s Western Cape province. Singh points to a large white cross perched like a beacon on the slopes of the Dassenberg Mountain. “Everything below that cross is mine,” he says.

This is all so deliciously colonial, it makes you want to join the SA Communist Party like Senzeni Zokwana, who is both current agriculture minister and the chairman of the SACP. Senzeni is the custodian of all agricultural land in SA for all the people and not just jolly billionaires like Cecil Singh and that other neighbour Richard Branson.