There are years in Indian history that seem to grow more distant with time. 1947 is not one of them. Nearly eight decades have passed since India and Pakistan were born out of Partition, and yet the year keeps finding its way back into our conversations, our politics, our family histories and, most persistently, our films. A generation that lived through it is disappearing, while another has grown up knowing Partition mostly through stories told at home, photographs of people who left Lahore, Delhi, Punjab or Dhaka, abandoned houses, railway journeys and films. The strange thing is that although our distance from 1947 has increased, our emotional relationship with it has never entirely settled.