Tact not our forte!, tweeted Sandhya Mridul to friend Maria Goretti a few days ago. The Mumbai girl, as real in real as she is on reel is the go-to actress for the I-don’t-give-a-damn kind of character that Bolly scriptwriters are slowly waking up to.

True to form, Sandhya is refreshingly honest and characteristically bold in her latest outing, The Great Indian Butterfly that saw a quiet release last Friday.

t2 turns the spotlight on Sandhya and how she makes this film about the unending and often unreal quest for love, peace and happiness worth a watch.

If Vidya Balan went ‘ch***yam sulphate’ in Ishqiya and Priyanka Chopra threw about a host of maa-behen gaalis in Kaminey, then as a frustrated executive teetering on the brink of a failed marriage, Sandhya’s Meera spouts the choicest of cuss words in The Great Indian Butterfly — effortlessly and with attractive abandon.

If “bitch” and “screwed-up bastard” are reserved for the scheming office colleague, the F-word is hurled at least a dozen times. Husband Krish (played by Aamir Bashir) gets most of it. “You are a dick with a constipated face” to “All you want to be is a carefree but caring husband with balls of steel”.

When he fails to gauge a physics theory, she looks at him disdainfully and says, “You are such an ass. Should have never married a commerce graduate.” When he complains about the tough time he is having at work, she cheeses him off with, “Yes, yes, your ass is taken a little bit more than everyone else’s”.

Even when the dialogues get a trifle pseudo, like when Meera asks Krish, “Would you care for a cup of tea?” Sandhya’s nonchalance pulls it off.

Stripped off the trappings of a regular Bollywood heroine, Sandhya makes her Meera an everyday woman, unapologetic, in your face and ever ready to call a spade a spade. When it comes to sex, she is the one to take the initiative, gently reminding Krish time and again that they “have stopped having sex”. She kisses with passion and doesn’t think twice before slipping off her tee, baring her bra and her back. Not once, but twice.

Just like the bindaas Pearl in Page 3, the gritty Madhu of Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and even the uninhibited lesbian Mini in the recent release Hum Tum Aur Ghost, here is a performance that is perfectly pitched. A woman with balls of steel and a melting heart.