The first time someone asked me that outright—“So, can you tell me exactly what’s going to happen?”—I was sitting in a dingy apartment on Shankar Lane, Malad West, with a cup of lukewarm chai and a deck that had been in my hands for six years. It was August 2019, the air smelled faintly of rain and wet concrete. I remember shuffling slower than usual. Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because the truth was more complicated than a simple yes or no.

Tarot cards don’t work like a crystal ball in a movie. They don’t spit out exact dates or give you the name of the stranger you’ll marry. Instead, they show currents—energies, influences, possibilities—things that are already moving under the surface. It’s like checking the tide chart before going to the beach. The chart can tell you the high tide is at 3:45 pm, but whether you get knocked over by a wave depends on where you’re standing and how prepared you are.

And yet, there’s a strange way the cards can feel eerily predictive. In late 2021, my friend Nihar pulled the Tower card just days before a massive reorganization at his company. He brushed it off at first (“Probably means I’ll have to clean my room”). Two weeks later, he was packing boxes at his desk. Was it coincidence? Or was the card mirroring the instability already brewing in the background?

Here’s the thing—tarot isn’t about locking in a single outcome. It’s about mapping potential pathways. The Nine of Swords might show your anxiety about an upcoming decision. The Ace of Pentacles could point toward a new opportunity. Both might manifest, or neither might, depending on the choices you make. That’s the part most people miss: the future isn’t fixed.

Some readers will tell you they can time events down to the month, even the week. Personally, I’m skeptical about pinpoint timing. I’ve seen spreads line up with uncanny accuracy, but I’ve also seen timelines shift when someone made an unexpected move—quit their job, took a trip, or had a conversation they’d been avoiding for months.

Think of it like weather forecasting. If a meteorologist says there’s an 80% chance of rain, you might carry an umbrella. If you then stay indoors all day, you avoid getting wet—not because the forecast was wrong, but because you acted on it. Tarot works in a similar way: it gives you information so you can respond, not resign yourself.

I once did a reading for a woman named Farida at Café Excelsior near Fort. She was debating whether to invest in a friend’s startup. The cards suggested risk—Five of Pentacles, followed by the Devil. She walked away from the deal. Months later, the company folded. She swears tarot “saved” her money. I think it just made her slow down long enough to listen to the doubts she already had.

Can tarot predict the future? Sort of. It can anticipate likely developments based on current momentum. But life isn’t a straight line—it’s more like a messy chalkboard where someone keeps adding new arrows and scribbles.

Maybe the better question is: do you want to know the ending, or do you want to understand the story you’re in right now? Because tarot will give you the latter, every time. And sometimes, that’s all you actually need.