Invariably, the first reaction was to hide the weakness. Says Sanjana: "I would start half-an-hour earlier than my sister to reach school on time." For both Vipul and Atul, the memory of staying on in class after school is vivid. Classmates were befuddled by the change: they couldn't understand how the Goyals had suddenly become the laggards. "I didn't want anyone to notice the strange way I walked, or climbed the stairs," says Atul. The battle was on.

It was 1977 and it looked like the problem wasn't going away. Kusum took her children to the orthopaedic centre at Chandimandir, near Chandigarh. The check-up done, the children were asked to wait outside while the doctor gave their mother the lowdown. "We sat outside and joked… imagined we were dying of cancer. No one realized how bad it was," remembers Sanjana. Kusum couldn't bring herself to tell the children; it was their aunt who later sat them down and told them the name of the disease, and what it meant. "It means," Vipul remembers Maasi saying, " that you won't walk normally… you'll need help to sit down, stand up, get dressed…" The children could barely comprehend her words. "But we shall fight. For giving up means death." Her words still ring in their ears.

Coming to terms. Battling the disease wasn't easy. Initially, it meant giving up ice creams, chocolates and junk food that kids love, for being overweight is nightmarish for an MD patient. The muscles are already weak and obesity makes them give in faster. For Sanjana, it meant giving up dance, her first love and something she had excelled at. For Vipul and Atul, it meant looking on as friends settled down in their personal lives and careers. For each, it meant smothering their instincts, dealing with curious stares and a never-to-end battle against their affliction that had just begun.

At another level, the battle was to keep the home fires burning. With just a small hardware shop - that stocked nuts, bolts, locks, utensils and suchlike - to run the household, the going was tough. Recalls Atul, the family's accounting brain: "In the early seventies, I remember going to the bank every morning with just Rs 90-100 to deposit - the previous day's sales." Imagine running a family of eight with a monthly income of Rs 300, from the slender 10 per cent profit they made.

The disease was a drain on the family's meager resources. The Goyals would follow any lead that promised a cure. Ayurveda, homeopathy, allopathy, nature cure, even miracle workers were tried. Atul, Vipul and Sanjana were taken to every corner of the country. A sadhu claimed he could cure them and made away with five tolas of the family gold. But the disease stayed.

The Goyals pulled through all of this. Even in those hard times, papa Goyal managed to buy a second-hand bicycle - affectionately called "Himachal Rajya Parivahan' (Himachal state transport) by the family. "By God's grace, we never went short of food," says Kusum. One wonders how, because for the past 30 years it's been an open house where not having guests over for a meal is unusual.

"Till we got the gas agency, the family just about managed to eat well," says Atul. He still remembers the day his college professor told him to change his worn-out shoes. Just as clearly as he remembers washing every day the only good pair of trousers he had. For the family's saakh (honour) could not be compromised even as the Goyals gave up the watches, and radios, and telephones… all those trappings of middle class living.

Living life again. The Goyals today look an average upper-middle class family. A double-storied five bedroom house in a posh locality, two cars - a white air-conditioned Zen and a cherry Omni - annual vacations and a social status. But the transformation has taken 20 years.

Atul has turned the small shop with an annual turnover of Rs 3 lakh into a Rs 30 lakh business. Vipul's gas agency has contributed handsomely to the family's finances - the zen and the new house have been funded mostly from the agency's profits. Sanjana has chipped in with her own boutique, Stitch 'n' style, and she has several customers from Solan and Delhi. Anurag, the youngest, is a budding tourism entrepreneur.

The Goyals really turned the corner after Vipul got the gas agency. He remembers the day bookings were to open. People had lined up all night for a connection and the queue was a good half-a-mile long. What he took home that night - the proceeds from booking advances - was big money for the Goyals. They all remember the first wristwatch and calculator that were