There are 20 million people on the road at any time, in buses and trains, walking; 500,000 villages, 120 million households, and none of them wanted to report if they had a case of smallpox in their house, because they thought that smallpox was the visitation of a deity, Shitala Mata, the cooling mother, and it was wrong to bring strangers into your house when the deity was in the house.
Há 20 milhões de pessoas na estrada, em qualquer momento, em autocarros, comboios, a pé; 500 000 aldeias, 120 milhões de famílias e nenhuma delas queria comunicar se tinham um caso de varíola em casa, porque pensavam que a varíola era uma visita duma deusa, Shitala Mata, a mãe fria, e era mau meter desconhecidos dentro de casa, quando a deusa lá estava.