Bhalu

Bhalu: The Teddy Bear Friend

Every Easter, all around the world, people buy Easter eggs. These could be regular eggs, chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs, and those eggs have toys in them. This has been a tradition for many, many years.

Do you know why Easter is celebrated? Several years ago, Jesus Christ was crucified. He was hung on a cross and died on a Friday, which is called Good Friday. Then, because he was God, he came back to life on Monday. That Monday is called Easter. So it is a celebration of Jesus Christ coming back to life. People celebrate it in many ways. Over time, it has become a tradition to give chocolate eggs. You can eat the chocolate, and inside the chocolate, there is usually some sort of toy.

There was a girl called Jenny. She was very lonely. She lived in a very small town and didn't have any friends. She used to feel very bored. Her mummy and daddy were with her, but she didn't have any friends. She really didn't meet any friends. Because of coronavirus, all the schools were closed, and she got all her classes through Zoom video. So she had to be at home all day. Her mummy and daddy were working, so they had to be on phone calls the whole day. She used to feel very, very bored and kept wishing, "Oh, I wish I had more friends. I wish I had somebody to play with."

Then Easter came, and her daddy bought some Easter eggs. He planted those Easter eggs all over the garden and hid them. He gave her some clues like a scavenger hunt, and she had to go and look for these eggs.

She found one egg and ate the chocolate. Inside there was a Lego block. Then she found another egg. This was a very special egg. While she was eating, she made a wish: "I wish I could get a friend who will be with me all the time."

Inside the egg, there was a small brown-colored teddy bear. She said, "Wow, this teddy bear is going to be my friend!" But it was just a stuffed toy. She went and kept it next to her bed on a pillow. She really loved it a lot. She used to cuddle it and sleep. She fell in love with that teddy bear as if it was real. She used to talk to the teddy bear: "Hello, teddy bear. I've got up. I'm going to brush my teeth today. I have classes. I have to learn math and science, and I'm learning algebra."

Then one day, suddenly, she was telling the teddy bear a story. "This math sum is so difficult. It's saying something like, 'Jack has five marbles. John has three marbles. Together they have how many marbles?' I don't know."

And the teddy bear said, "I think they have eight marbles together."

She was genuinely shocked. "How did you speak?"

The teddy bear said, "Yes, yes, I can speak. Since you've been speaking to me all these days, I now have life in me. But I cannot talk in front of anybody else. If you talk to me in front of your mummy, daddy, or any of your friends, I will not be able to answer. But if you are alone with me in the room, I'll be able to answer all your questions. I'll be your friend. I'll be your best buddy all the time. Just don't lose me and take care of me."

She was so happy! She started talking to him and asked all these wonderful questions. She asked him questions on science and math. She could talk to him all the time, and he would play with her. They could do puzzles together. His hands and legs didn't move, of course. But he could tell her, if she was doing a puzzle, "Move that yellow block from this corner to the other corner." And if they were playing Ludo, he could say, "I rolled the dice and got number three, number four." So he had his own ways of playing with her, and he became her best friend.

Her mummy and daddy used to wonder because she used to sit in a room with the teddy next to her, and she would be playing. But when they were watching, the teddy would not talk. But she felt that the teddy was talking to her. Mummy and Daddy got a bit worried about how she kept talking to this teddy bear all the time. She fell in love with that teddy, and they used to play all the time. Suddenly she was much, much happier. So her mummy and daddy were also happy that she was happy.

They bought her a bigger teddy. She said, "No, no, I don't want the bigger teddy. I'm happy with the small teddy. His name is Bhalu. I like Bhalu."

So she and Bhalu became best friends. She grew up and went to college, but she kept Bhalu with her all the time. She used to talk to Bhalu, and Bhalu used to give her all the nice responses. Then she went to college and got a lot of friends. She met many, many good friends, and she was not lonely anymore.

Then one day, she was speaking to Bhalu. Bhalu didn't respond. Bhalu did not give any answer back. She was saying, "Hey Bhalu, why are you not talking to me? What happened to you?" Bhalu was not going to talk anymore. She was very surprised. "What happened, what happened?"

So she went and saw a doctor. She explained what was happening. The doctor said, "The thing was, you were young and you were lonely, and you didn't have any friends. So you wanted Bhalu to be your friend. That's why you were imagining-you were always imagining that Bhalu was answering your questions, or the teddy bear was answering your questions. But actually, that wasn't the case. The teddy bear made you happy, and you kept it. But now you have grown up, and you have friends, and you feel confident and happy, and you are not lonely anymore. Hence, you don't feel that Bhalu is talking back to you because you don't need a stuffed animal to talk to you. You have outgrown the teddy bear. Now you have real friends. So go and spend your time with real friends. Keep this Bhalu just to remind yourself that this Bhalu helped you a lot when you were a young child. But don't ever believe that a stuffed animal can actually talk to you. If the stuffed animal is talking to you, it's because your imagination is talking to you."

She said, "I'm very, very thankful to the teddy bear, to Bhalu. And I'm also thankful for the Easter egg in which this Bhalu came."

And that's the story of Bhalu.