Ma Prem Usha (November 3, 1937 – July 17, 2008) was an Indian

tarot card reader Tarot card reading is a form of cartomancy whereby practitioners use tarot cards to purportedly gain insight into the past, present or future. They formulate a question, then draw cards to interpret them for this end. A traditional tarot deck con ...

and

columnist A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Column (newspaper), Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the fo ...

. Usha, who was well known as a

clairvoyant Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...

and

fortune-teller Fortune telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical w ...

both inside Indian and abroad, travelled extensively to read her tarot cards.

Biography

Ma Prem Usha was a graduate of

Isabella Thoburn College The Isabella Thoburn College, formerly the Lucknow Women's College and often called informally IT College, is a college for women in Lucknow, India, named after its founder, Isabella Thoburn, the first woman American missionary of the Methodist ...

Lucknow Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and division ...

, India. It was during the 1970s that Usha was initiated into the order of

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

mystic,

Osho Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain; 11 December 193119 January 1990), also known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and later as Osho (), was an Indian godman, mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement. He was viewed as a controv ...

, an Indian

guru Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverentia ...

. She remained a follower and

devotee Devotion or Devotions may refer to: Religion * Faith, confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept * Anglican devotions, private prayers and practices used by Anglican Christians * Buddhist devotion, commitment to religious observance * Cat ...

of the teachings of Osho for over 30 years until her death in 2008. Usha and a daughter often travelled together for tarot readings throughout the world. Usha and her granddaughter, Amira Sultan Kapoor, who is a sculptor and painter, created a new deck of tarot cards called the Saakshi Tarot Deck which is based on symbology, Indian mythology and the five elements of nature (

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...

earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

and

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

). Ma Prem Usha died on July 17, 2008, in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

, India at the age of 70. She was survived by her husband, Lt. Col Raj Kumar Kapoor, a son, Milin Kapoor, and three daughters, Ma Prem Ritambhara (Ritambhara Dewan), Sonia Pillai, and Anjali Kapoor Ben-Sarfaradz. Cremated on the day of her death, her ashes were taken to

Haridwar Haridwar (; ) is a city and municipal corporation in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, India. With a population of 228,832 in 2011, it is the second-largest city in the state and the largest in the district. The city is situated on the righ ...

, by her husband and a daughter, and placed into the

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

river.

Author

Consulted and interviewed extensively by Indian and international publications on her predictions, Usha contributed weekly

astrological Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...

writings and predictions to several major

Indian newspapers , there were over 100,000 publications registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India. India has the second-largest newspaper market in the world, with daily newspapers reporting a combined circulation of over 240 million copies . There are ...

periodicals A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a Academic journal, journal ...

and

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

s. Her writings often touched on a wide variety of subjects including

health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...

and

people A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

. She also authored 12 books on the twelve signs of the zodiac.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Usha, Ma Prem 1937 births 2008 deaths Indian astrologers Indian astrological writers Indian columnists Clairvoyants Fortune tellers People associated with the tarot Indian women columnists Rajneesh movement