The Siege Of Krishnapur - pg. 124

Apart from the bunnniahs there were, of course, the inevitable bystanders one finds everywhere in Inida, idly looking on, wherever there is anything of interest happening (and even when there is nothing) because they are too poor to have anything better to do, and the least sign of activity or purpose, even symbolic (a railway station without trains, for example), exerts a magnetic influence over them which nothing in their own devastated in their own devastated lives can counter.