The Colossus by Ranjini Iyer

script is Dravidian, but….” He shrugged. “No one knows for sure.”
    Max nodded doubtfully.
    “Not helpful?” he said, his eyebrows raised.
    Truth was, she didn’t know what was relevant and what wasn’t. Her fingers went up and down the length of the cylinder of the seal. It was smooth all over, but her fingers landed on one rough portion near the end of the cylinder. Something had been drawn there. She looked at it closely. Drawn close to the bottom of her grandfather’s seal was a small broken type of square divided into four quadrants, and there were dots in every quadrant. It was unmistakable. A soft moan escaped her lips.
    It was a Swastika. She looked at it closely. It wasn’t tilted like the Nazi version. And the dots? What did those mean? The Swastika looked like it had been made using a penknife or some sharp object. Had Opa done it? But why? He was Jewish! He had been put in a concentration camp, for God’s sake.
    “Find something?” Julian McIntosh took the seal from her.
    “A Swastika!” he said. “How interesting.”
    Max felt a chill seep through her. Had the swastika always been there? Was there one in other Indus Valley seals? She started to ask Julian when suddenly she was in no mood to learn any more. No mood to read the diary. Perhaps Opa had revealed something in it that was so distasteful that he had torn and burned away much of it in shame.
    Max bit hard on her lip, wondering what to do.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    There was an awkward silence for a few seconds.
    Julian McIntosh sighed and folded his arms. “So how can I help?”
    Max put her finger on the Swastika. “This doesn’t disturb you?” she whispered. “My grandfather must have carved it there.”
    Julian looked at the Swastika and made no comment. He turned the seal back to its face, glanced at it, and looked again at the picture in the book.
    “It isn’t like any of the other Indus seals, is it?” Max said sadly.
    Julian’s face grew animated. “It isn’t and that is odd.” His eyes were doing a little dance. “Clever of you to spot such a minute difference.”
    Minute. Really!
    “The Colossus’s seal is different in a very intriguing way.” Julian gave her a delighted smile. “I almost missed it.” He dashed to his desk and returned with a magnifying glass, which he handed to Max.
    She looked through it. The seals looked identical. Except for the Swastika.
    “Ms. Rosen, how very rude of me. Please do sit down.”
    “Max,” she said softly.
    Julian went to his chair. Max sat opposite him.
    “Not many experts would have noticed the difference,” Julian said. “The Colossus’s seal has a giant urn in front of the animal. Not this incense burner as is in the seal in the book. Whoever was the owner of this seal—and yes, all Indus seals had unique owners—was probably a maverick of some sort; that urn probably was significant to him,which is why he put it on his seal instead of an incense burner.” Julian ran his fingers through his curls. “Very unusual!” he murmured.
    Max looked at the pictures. The urn and incense burner did look kind of different. But not much. “How do you know it’s an urn and not just a different type of incense burner?” she said.
    “The commonplace urns of the period are exactly like that,” Julian said, sounding a tad pompous. “Archeologists found dozens everywhere. Squat ones, plain. With those small handles. Look at the incense burner—they rest on a pedestal, they always have markings or decorations. Urns are jars. No pedestal, plain. Different? Absolutely. Significant? I don’t know. But I believe that image on your Colossus’s seal is an urn, unless I’m quite mistaken, which I am usually not.”
    He gazed into the distance and continued. “Question is, why did he make his seal so subtly and yet obviously different than the ones of his time? This is a true copy of the Colossus’s seal, isn’t it?” He examined it once more.
    “Opa Samuel—my grandfather—told