Book excerpt: The Partition of 1947 has influenced the works of an entire generation of writers, and continues to do so. Gulzar witnessed the horrors of Partition first-hand and it is a theme that he has gone back to again and again in his writings. Footprints on Zero Line brings together a collection of his finest writings -- fiction, non-fiction and poems -- on the subject. What sets this collection apart from other writings on Partition is that Gulzar's unerring eye does not stop at the events of 1947 but looks at how it continues to affect our lives to this day. Wonderfully rendered in English by well-known author and translator Rakhshanda Jalil, this collection marks seventy years of India's Independence. Footprints on Zero Line is not only a brilliant collection on a cataclysmic event in the history of our nation by one of our finest contemporary writers, it is also a timely reminder that those who forget the errors of the past are doomed to repeat them.