India, July 25 -- The success of the Hindi film Main Vaapas Aaunga, now in theatres, featuring Naseeruddin Shah and Diljit Dosanjh, has everyone talking about Partition-era literature again. Familiar names have resurfaced, chief among them that of the iconic Saadat Hasan Manto.

But there are many other writers whose work, while not primarily centred on Partition, tackled the theme in their own ways.

In my previous column, I mentioned Phanishwar Nath Renu (1921 - 1977), the writer from Purnea in Bihar, whose short story Maare Gaye Gulfam was made into the film Teesri Kasam (1966), about a bullock cart rider who falls in love with a travelling nautanki dancer.

He is not a writer one associates with Partition. He is a chronicler of rural ...