I am soft and cuddly that soothe your heart. But, If you pick my last name I am going to tear you all apart. Who am I?

The great emperor Akbar once ruled India. He was well known for his intelligence. But along with that, he was known for the Nine Gems in his court. One of the nine gems was Birbal, a quick witted and extremely intelligent man. The stories of his wit were widely popular.

Once a king ruling in a distant land heard of Birbal. To check his wit, he sent an invitation and called him to visit his land. Akbar allowed Birbal to go and he took off on the journey.

Upon reaching that kings kingdom, he was welcomed with flowers. He was then escorted to the palace of the king. Upon entering the palace, Birbal found that there were six people sitting in front of him adorning the same robe. They were also lookalike and it was hard to judge who the real king was.

After a couple of minutes, Birbal approached one of them and bowed in front of him greeting him.

That was the real king. How did Birbal know who was the real king ?

The following alphametic has only one solution. Can you find it?
ENLIST + SILENT + LISTEN = ANAGRAM

PS: You may start the number from 0.

Why is the Hole below a Lock?

You have a basket containing ten apples. You have ten friends, who each desire an apple. You give each of your friends one apple.
Now all your friends have one apple each, yet there is an apple remaining in the basket.
How?

Decode the below four famous ciphers:

8P of the SS
1M of the E
1S of the SS
60M in 1H

Can you write down eight eights so that they add up to one thousand?

You see a boat filled with people, yet there isn’t a single person on board. How is that possible?

Birbal was jester, counsellor, and fool to the great Moghul emperor, Akbar.
The villagers loved to talk of Birbal's wisdom and cleverness,
and the emperor loved to try to outsmart him.
One day Akbar (emperor) drew a line across the floor.
"Birbal," he ordered, "you must make this line shorter, but you cannot erase any bit of it."
Everyone present thought the emperor had finally outsmarted Birbal.
It was clearly an impossible task.
Yet within moments the emperor and everyone else present had to agree that Birbal had made the line shorter without erasing any of it.
How could this be?

Can you find the missing number in the third row?
35 20 14
27 12 18
5 2 ?