Gaata Rahe Mera Dil is aptly named, for as one turns the pages, one cannot but resist humming some of the immortal numbers it is about. It’s also a good book to read while it is raining and hope that the monsoon lingers a little longer, as then the weather adds the right mood to hum these tunes. The book picks its way, year by year, through fifty years of the nation’s ‘favourite’ Hindi film songs. It’s a tough job, and the authors admit that the fifty they have selected amount to less than 20 per cent of the songs they would have liked to include, a reconfirmation perhaps of Pareto’s ineluctable 80:20 principle.