We’re delighted to share that TishTash is now working with Rucha Daryani, founder
of The Second Act, a human-led movement supporting women across the UAE
through major life transitions – illness, motherhood, burnout, divorce and career
disruption.
If you know anything about what we stand for as an agency, you’ll understand
exactly why this partnership means so much to us. Everything we’ve built at
TishTash, from our women’s health PR work to the community platforms under That
Group, comes back to the same belief: women deserve honest support, not polished
narratives about how they’re supposed to be coping.
Rucha’s story is exactly that kind of honesty. At 38, following a medical error, she
suffered a stroke that paralysed the left side of her body and forced her to relearn
how to walk, speak and function. But it was what came after the visible recovery that
shaped her work. Once she looked well again, the world assumed she was fine –
even as fatigue, cognitive load, fear and a real sense of identity loss remained. She
had entered the largely unspoken territory of hidden disability, and realised how few
people were talking about it.
That realisation became The Second Act. It isn’t therapy, coaching or a structured
programme. It’s something quieter and, we’d argue, rarer: permission to begin again
slowly, and the understanding that rebuilding, rather than bouncing back, is the
healthier goal. Rucha calls this soft courage – resilience that looks like pacing, rest,
asking for help and taking small steps, rather than forcing positivity on a timeline that
isn’t yours.
What we find most powerful is how far this reaches beyond one medical event.
Illness, motherhood, burnout, divorce, career disruption – the identity loss that follows
major life transitions is something so many women recognise, whether or not their
own turning point looked anything like Rucha’s.
The Second Act launches publicly in October 2026, alongside The Light Never Left,
a children’s picture book inspired by Rucha’s family’s experience of stroke and
recovery. As a mother of two, Rucha speaks candidly about hidden disability, identity
loss and the long, human work of rebuilding – as a keynote speaker, in the media,
and through her work with schools and organisations across the UAE and wider
region.
Our team is working with Rucha ahead of the October launch, helping shape how
her story and The Second Act reach the audiences who need to hear it – from the
invisible phase of recovery that no one prepares you for, to why “just stay positive”
might be the worst advice anyone gives a person trying to rebuild their life.
We couldn’t be more excited to support a founder whose work sits so close to
everything we believe in: that women’s stories deserve to be told honestly, that
support should meet people where they actually are, and that community and
connection are what get us through the hardest chapters.
Watch this space as we build up to October.
For media enquiries relating to this project, contact darshana@tishtash.com
