‘You are 45?’: Ankur Warikoo recalls the emotional moment his mother realised her son was no longer a child

Turning 45 can feel like just another birthday milestone, but for a parent, it can carry an entirely different weight. Ankur Warikoo recently recalled a quiet moment with his mother that made him reflect on how quickly children grow up. A simple question asked after a family dinner left his mother confronting the passage of time, while Warikoo found himself thinking about his own children and the bittersweet reality of watching them grow older.

Ankur Warikoo recalls his mother’s innocent question

Ankur Warikoo took to X and shared the deeply personal memory from last year, shortly after his birthday. He recalled that the family had gone out for dinner, with him behind the wheel. When they returned home, everyone got out of the car, while his mother was the last to leave. Just before exiting, she innocently asked him how old he had become. Warikoo replied simply, “45, ma.” Her immediate reaction caught him off guard. She gasped and repeated the number, asking whether he was really 45.

His mother suddenly realised how much time had passed

For Warikoo, the moment seemed to carry a deeper meaning. He reflected on how his mother had carried him for nine months, given birth to him, fed him, nurtured him and cared for him. Yet the child she had known all her life was now 45. He felt that his age had suddenly made her confront her own passage through life. He could see that the realisation affected her deeply, though not necessarily through pain. Instead, it appeared to be an emotional acceptance of an unavoidable reality: her little boy had grown older. Warikoo felt she almost wished he had not grown up quite so quickly.

Ankur Warikoo gets emotional thinking about his own children

The memory also made Warikoo think about his role as a father. He is a father to a 15-year-old son and a 9-year-old daughter, and the thought of them eventually growing older affects him deeply. He admitted that thinking about the day his children will grow up brings him to tears. What particularly troubles him is the idea that they may eventually lose the childlike enthusiasm they have for seemingly trivial things.

For Warikoo, his mother has already reached the stage of life that he fears reaching himself — watching a child grow up and confronting how quickly time has passed.