Sravana has filled the special buses before anyone has counted Urukunda. Roses already sell above ₹600 a kilogram.

Sravana Masam has started as a transport story before it has become a headcount. In Kurnool district the temple that is pulling the buses is Urukunda Eeranna Swamy, in Yemmiganur constituency. This desk does not have a devotee count for that shrine and will not invent one.

The month is filling Vaishnavite and goddess temples across Andhra Pradesh. Special prayers are mainly on Fridays, Saturdays and Tuesdays. Those three weekdays are the ritual clock. The rest of the week is the travel clock.

APSRTC’s Yemmiganur depot manager, M Maddileti, has said 20 special buses are running exclusively for devotees to Urukunda Eeranna during Sravana. He has also said more will be put on if the rush increases. Twenty is the number that exists today. The second sentence is a door, not a second fleet.

The same season is already a number in YSR Kadapa. At Gandi Veeranjaneya Swamy in Pulivendula, nearly 30,000 devotees came on the previous Saturday. That is the only temple headcount in these facts. APSRTC’s Kadapa regional manager, K Ramesh, has said special buses are running to Gandi and to other major temples.

Devuni Kadapa’s Sri Lakshmi Venkateswara temple, which is managed by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, is crowded. So is Ontimitta Kodanda Rama. Further east, Kanaka Mahalakshmi and Simhachalam in Visakhapatnam, Dwaraka Tirumala in Eluru and Kanaka Durga in Vijayawada are seeing streams. Indrakeeladri has special crowd management. Those names are a map of the month, not a ticket chart. This desk has no temple ticket prices on the card and will not print any.

APSRTC says nearly 250 additional buses may run across Rayalaseema during Sravana. The month continues until mid-September. “May run” is the corporation’s verb. It is a capacity sentence, not a timetable of route numbers. No route number is in these facts.

The other price of the month is in the flower market. Roses have moved from about ₹300 a kilogram to more than ₹600 a kilogram. Chrysanthemum, jasmine and crossandra are also up. Shaik Rahamath Baba, a flower trader at the Kurnool Flower Market, has said prices rise in Sravana and in Karthika, and that this year lower production has pushed rates further. ₹300 to more than ₹600 is the rose band he is working in. It is not a government notified rate.

Women are the majority of this season’s passengers. Officials estimate nearly 80 percent of devotees this season are women. Stree Shakti free travel for women is the scheme sitting under that estimate. An APSRTC official has said more than 30 lakh additional passenger trips will be made in Rayalaseema alone during Sravana. Thirty lakh is a trip count, not a headcount at Urukunda. A woman can take more than one trip. The official has not split the 30 lakh by shrine.

That is why this desk will not write a number for Eeranna Swamy’s courtyard. The public facts give 20 special buses from Yemmiganur, a promise of more if the rush grows, nearly 30,000 at Gandi on the previous Saturday, nearly 250 extra buses that may run in Rayalaseema, more than 30 lakh additional trips, an 80 percent women estimate, and a rose price that has doubled past ₹600 a kilogram.

Sravana will last until mid-September. Until then the depot at Yemmiganur is running a temple service, not a census. Fridays, Saturdays and Tuesdays will keep filling the specials. If the rush increases, Maddileti has already said the fleet can grow. The flower stalls in Kurnool will keep selling the month by the kilogram. The temple that is pulling the 20 buses does not, in this file, have a turnstile number. The honest picture is the buses, the roses, and the other courtyards that have been counted.