Pankaj Advani & Nari Contractor

Last week India’s Pankaj Advani became World Billiards Champion while Nari Contractor is a well known figure of Indian cricket. Well there is no similarity between the Billiards Champ and former cricketer so far as sports is concern, but there is one common thing between the two that bring both of them in this blog together and that is the circumstances at the time of their birth. While one is an Indian player by CHOSEN BIRTH PLACE, the other is a Gujarati player by FORCED TO CHOOSE the BIRTH PLACE.
Pankaj Advani was born on the 24th of July, 1985 at Pune (Maharashtra). His parents along with his elder brother - Shree, were settled in Kuwait, but his mother, Kajal Advani, had arrived in India just to make sure that her second child should be an Indian citizen and India get Pankaj. If the Advanis had decided otherwise, today Pankaj might have represented USA or Kuwait but now he is a pride of India.
After spending his initial years at Kuwait, Pankaj along with his family went to USA on a trip, when they came to know that Iraqi forces had invaded Kuwait, and the family was forced to come back to India where they settled in Bangalore.
Nariman (Nari) Contractor: One of the gems of Indian cricket started his first class career in 1952-53 for Gujarat and scored centuries in both the innings of his debut match. His parents were from Mumbai (then Bombay). In February 1934 his mother came to Godhara (Gujarat) at Nari’s uncle’s home. She had to go back to Mumbai but due to ill health she could not… and gave birth to a child Nari. Thus by the virtue of his birthplace Nari Contractor preferred to play for Gujarat in Ranji Trophy and then went to become the captain of Indian team. Contractor spent his whole life in Mumbai but has played 18 years for Gujarat.