Alexa in Service

SB wanted to stream KGF- Chapter 1 songs from my mobile phone by connecting it to a bluetooth speaker. Before any reader starts passing judgments on me, a disclaimer: my opinions on a movie that has taken the Southern film industry by storm are reserved at the moment. We enjoy a couple of songs from KGF precisely because of their symphonic overtones. SB and SR have recently started identifying such nuances and have been expressing a distinct preference for listening to such songs while travelling in the car. (Which is indeed a huge relief from Imagine Dragons' Believer, the Telugu version of Adiye Kolluthe from Vaaranam Aayiram, or All Rise by Blues. What more can you expect when their father used to play the trombone and their mother used to dabble in playing the trumpet! Once upon a time, I was a proud owner of a Yamaha trumpet...Now I have only its photograph). Digressions apart, SB has also recently discovered how to activate and use Alexa on my phone to play the songs that he wants. And we had some rather hilarious results (stuff for another post). 

So yesterday, in all of his 8-year old voice, SB instructed Alexa - ' Play songs from KGF'. Promptly Alexa identified the album and started playing the songs. Only problem was that by default, Alexa had identified the Kannada version leading me to run helter-skelter from the kitchen only to discover a baffled SB sitting at the dining table. He declared, 'Amma, the music is alright, but something is wrong with the words.' Time for me to take over - I said ' Alexa - play songs from KGF Telugu'. 

Honestly, I didn't anticipate that a voice assistant would take the rules of grammar so seriously, especially since the trend nowadays is towards dropping prepositions, articles and all those 'inconsequential' nuggets of grammar that provide structural support to an utterance and can dangerously alter the meaning if used wrongly. However, Alexa was a different ballgame - It said ' Playing Top 50 Telugu songs' and started off merrily. Now, it was my turn to look baffled and try again. (which yours truly did!) 

Fourth time, epiphany struck and I said - 'Alexa, play song from KGF in Telugu'. And when the song started, I turned to SB with a triumphant smile and said, 'This is how prepositions are used'.