In spite of being a linguistically diverse country, the literature in India has contributed to fostering a national identity – a national consciousness and a national culture. Shivani’s collection of Short Stories Aparadhini: Women without Men, was recently translated into English by her daughter and an established writer herself, Ira Pandey. The women in these stories are murderesses and harlots, village idiots and child brides, lovers and adulteresses, women marginalized and ultimately defiant. This paper explores how dignity, hope and respect fly away for the women who contradict the constructs of femininity in a patriarchal society, thus making them criminals