'Found it annoying when I was 25': Ankur Warikoo on his mother’s daily habit

Ankur Warikoo reflected on his mother’s daily habit of asking him the same question for over four decades.

Entrepreneur and author Ankur Warikoo has shared an emotional post on social media reflecting on a simple yet deeply personal routine with his 73-year-old mother. In the post, he recalled how she has asked him the same question every day for the past 46 years, a small habit that over time has become one of the most constant threads in his life. The reflection highlights how everyday family interactions, often taken for granted, quietly shape emotional memory and a sense of stability over decades.

Ankur Warikoo’s post highlights the beauty of everyday parental habits. (Instagram/@ankurwarikoo)

Sharing the post on X, Warikoo wrote, “My mother is 73. She still asks me what I had for lunch every single day. For 46 years. 16,790 lunches. I used to find it annoying when I was 25. I used to laugh about it when I was 35. At 46, I now realise that question is the only thing that has not changed in my entire life. Everything else has been negotiated. That sentence has not. I hope she keeps asking.”

Social media users reflect on quiet expressions of parental love

The post struck a chord with many users, who shared similar reflections in the comments section, pointing to how parental love is often expressed through repetition rather than grand gestures.

“Some people express love with grand gestures. Mothers often do it with the same small sentence, repeated thousands of times until it becomes part of the architecture of your life,” one user wrote.

Another commented, “We can be 5, 15, 25, or 55, for our mother, we are always the loving child. Love from her will always be unconditional.”

A user shared, “After every meal, I always have a 2-minute small talk with her, no matter how busy I am. It gives me hope in whatever I am doing.”

One comment noted, “One day, the questions we find annoying become the questions we miss the most.”

Another reflection read, “The detail that lands hardest: it was never the love that stayed constant, it was the repetition. We spend our lives optimizing repetition out of our days, only to realise too late that the repeated question was never about lunch — it was about love.”

A final comment summed up the sentiment, saying, “Some people say ‘I love you’ with words. Mothers often say it with questions.”