21mu Tiffin (Gujarati: transl. 21st Tiffin) is a 2021 Gujarati drama film directed by Vijaygiri Bava, produced by Twinkle Vijaygiri under the banner Vijaygiri FilmOS. It is based on 21mu Tiffin, a short story by Raam Mori. The film is about a woman running tiffin service business. It was released on 10 December 2021.
Niilam Paanchal plays a woman whose life is defined by her role in the kitchen, until a stranger befriends her, and she begins to re-examine her life.
The unnamed protagonist of Vijaygiri Bava’s Gujarati film 21mu Tiffin (2021) is like many women across the country, whose unpaid labour runs the household. Here, however, the woman of the household also runs a tiffin service that her husband and 20-year-old daughter Neetal (Netrie) see as something to be endured.
Niilam Paanchal plays the protagonist who has to assume many roles in her life. She is a dutiful mother, wife, sister and daughter and is sometimes weighed down by these titles that define her. Paanchal’s character would continue with her life the same way, were it not for the arrival of the 21st tiffin by way of Dhruv (Raunaq Kamdar).
Dhruv is a young man who arrives in Ahmedabad for a six-month work internship. Rooming with three others like him, he comes upon their delicious home tiffin, which he insists he must have, too. Meanwhile, Neetal and her mother don’t have a particularly close relationship, which sours as the young woman is home on vacation from college. She remains grumpy and disrespectful towards her mother, especially when it comes to matters dealing with the tiffin service.
Already burdened with her ailing mother’s health and failing memory due to Alzheimer’s, plus her husband’s uncaring attitude towards any domestic matters, the protagonist initially turns down Dhruv’s request for a tiffin via her delivery man Bhanu. When he makes a personal visit to her home and compliments her cuisine, she has a change of heart.