What was the relationship between Mr. M and Thami?

Mr. M is Thami’s favorite teacher (and the latter is his favorite student) and he desperately wants Thami to succeed, but fears that his involvement with a bad crowd will bring him down. As a result, he tries to get Isabel to work with Thami in an interschool literary competition in the hope of landing a scholarship for his favorite student.

In apartheid South Africa, to be young, gifted and black is not enough. Mr. M understands this, and so does Thami. Unfortunately, Mr. M thinks the way out is a scholarship, while Thami becomes convinced that words are not enough and so gets involved with an underground group of political activists seeking to meet violence with violence.