"Every single day, class began with the cane on me - and ended with the cane on me."

In the village school of Chintalapalli, Chandu is the boy on the last bench - the one everyone is sure will never learn. His teachers beat him every morning and every evening. The fiercest of them, the Telugu master Raghavayya, is certain the boy will fail Telugu in the tenth-class board exam.

But Chandu has a secret: letters learnt by the light of his grandmother's lantern, poems written in hiding, a forgotten library under the stairs - and Sandhya, the new girl who believes in him before anyone else does.

From the sting of the cane to a fight on the night of the village fair, from a first love lost to a rain-soaked climax where he returns to save his old school, this is the story of a boy nobody believed in - and how he showed them all who he was.

A moving, cinematic novel with original songs. Story, songs and writing by Tanneeru Vijay Krishna. English edition of the Telugu novel "Badilo Katha" (బడిలో కథ).