Inside villages of the dry and arid Bundelkhand region, very few people are washing hands or wearing masks She had anguish written all over her face.
Home seemed far away, even after a 1,200km-long train journey from the textile hub of Surat in Gujarat to the back-of-beyond Atarra in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh.
Last Tuesday, in the gruelling afternoon heat of the parched Bundelkhand region, Madhu Kumari stood outside a school in Atarra, rocking her one-day-old girl, while waiting for a vehicle to reach her village in Raebareli district, another 160km away.
The last leg of the journey was also the most painful. Around noon on 18 May, while on a special train for migrant workers, Madhu gave birth to a girl.