The Conch: How to be a pariah: believe Shrien is innocent

Look, I haven't been out for years. I occasionally shuffle down to the local spaza in yashmak and false eyebrows. I used to glitter at dinner parties, danced through the night; people smiled at me in the streets.

Those were the glory days, before the Cold War. I used to be asked to piles of Sunday brunches, dinners en famille, movie nights in upper Tamboerskloof with chardonnay, lunches in the winelands with ex-diplomats who had turned to full-time transvestism.

I was in such devastating social demand that even Kenny Kunene had made discreet inquiries about my waist:hip ratio.

Then I was load-shedded, cut from society and scrambled like an egg on a griddle. It turns out I'm the only person in South Africa who believes, and has always believed, that Shrien Dewani is innocent.

Last Christmas my best friend said, "Oh, we really would love to have you around on Christmas Day but, well, you know, Bob is a bit worried about the other guests. You just might mention, let slip, whisper into your soup, that Shrien Dewani is innocent and didn't murder his wife. Darling, I just can't risk it, what with the turkey and all. Things could get a bit clunky, I am sure you understand." Another friend suggested therapy.

Yep, I have been in my own little Shrien-sized world as the hatred for him became a national psychosis. Jeremy Gordin called him a "creature". My friend Rian Malan called him "the Hindu Prince" and dissed the judge. "The position she takes is totally, shockingly and hopelessly irrational."

My family in Oxford, who never contact me, even when one of them dies, sent an e-mail asking how I was. I got a death tweet.

What I can't understand is why so many people find it difficult to believe in Dewani's innocence when dozens of people get hijacked every day. The idea that a man with no previous convictions, an accountant with an obsession for perfection, asks the first taxi driver he meets to top his wife, has a ravishing gravitas. But it lies well beyond even a sense of fantasy.

Right from the get-go, the media frenzy surrounding the case was calamitous. Much of it arose from a low base of xenophobia and a desire to protect the local tourist industry.

So last week, for the verdict, I put on some slap and sought vindication. I had the temerity to sit on a front bench where I always sit. I was slowly but efficiently eased from my perch by a bunch of reporters. It was later relayed to me that I was not welcome because I'd written a "pro-Dewani piece".

I was transfixed by the Dewani family shoes. A cousin wore a pair of stylish stilts with scarlet linings. Mrs D likes Tod's. Shrien, with his raptor's nose, looked as if a small furry animal was crouching on his head.

When the judge announced the case would be dismissed, I beamed around hopefully. Maybe now someone would say "hello". Look, I wouldn't go as far as a hug - I'd be happy with a watery smile, a tiny brush of hands, an invite to coffee in a second-rate café, even just a meeting in a mall.

Instead, there was hysteria. "Hell man, he killed her, let him rot in jail! He must die! Man, that judge should be behind bars!" They danced and screamed maniacally on the court steps. I tentatively said, "He has been found innocent."

"You're mad, man, I'm telling you he killed her. Justice4anni, viva, viva!" One man screamed, "You think he's innocent, you should die!"

I slipped away unnoticed.

Thank God I hadn't thrown away my yashmak.

Find Lin Sampson on twitter: @hellschreiber