the story of the seal

I was reading this Indus (Sindhu, mis-spelt by the greeks; horrible that they couldn't pronounce anything without an -us added) valley civilization story recently. Harappans used seals, it was given. Now I dindn't understand what these seals meant. I began contemplating and it was sometime before I recognized that I was lost in thought...

Not very long ago, around 6 years may be, I had carried a seal to my class. I might have carried a Harappan seal as well, who knows! It was a seal, made up completely of some brown metal and it contailned some sort of a design at its bottom. Faint memory would suggest me that it was something similar to the sign carried by Hilter in the Nazi days. It was hardly heavy and as long as the little finger.

As usual, the class was over and I was strolling along with a friend of mine to the bus stand to catch a ___ (bus obviously). This friend of mine casually noticed me fiddling with the 'seal' in my hand. I had even pressed the seal against an inkpad and had tried a few impressions of it on my arm and palm. I think he noticed that too.

He asked me "Hey, whats that?"
"Seal"
"Hmm, strange. Pass it on man. Let me have a look."

pass.

A car honks past us and we both look at it simultaneously.

"Cool, where did u get it from?"
"You know, actually, this is my grandfather's. I took it from him. No, in fact he gave it to me."

Now, he noticed the marks of the seal on my arms more carefully, and..
"Oh! you are supposed to mark this on your arm, is it? Custom, some sort of, may be" he said very carefully so as to not offend me in any manner.

I immediately thought of a vague movie where all the people of a particular gang would have marked theselves with strange marks.

I could not help laughing at his remark.

He laughed with me too..