This small sized write-up is in 2 parts –the next one deals with personal experience.

Not necessary at all, it may it may not. Saying wise, it sounds pleasant, in practical terms it differs from individual to individual. There are certain quarters who feel that it is just a ritual and nothing like any necessary ethics. There are yet certain sections of people who define return of courtesy as a matter of the need some particular job may demand. Job is over, courtesy aspect of it, return one or otherwise, is over. Many a politicians are a self explicit example. When elections are there, they are the ones who will return your one solute to them ten times. After elections are over, you salute them ten times and they wouldn’t bother to return yours even for once. Similarly it applies in a negative order too. Mahatma Gandhi said that if some body slaps you, you offer the slapper the other side of your cheek also, and this will make him realise his bad conduct. What is currently in vogue in our society is that if you offer another cheek to the attacker, he will fully avail the opportunity without missing the chance to slap you once again. There are some others who treat the courtesy or any return of it as a requisite term for business purposes beyond which they wouldn’t bother the least about it. Ethically it looks fine, practically it varies from person to person and need to need. ….Continued as Part (2)