Burden of being from an IIM

Indian Institute of Management : The buzz wword that can put people on alert, make eyes dreamy and raise a few eye brows. Many a dreams in this country, for a "successful" life begin with this word or climax at it. However what I write today is not what we all know but what, having gone through it, I feel about it. The immediate trigger of this train of thought is a bit personal sad experience but none the less I've dwelled over it for quite some time and experienced it on more than one occasions. I call it, as the title of this post suggests, the burden of being from an IIM.

How and why? Consider this - A fresh graduate from IIM enters a renowned organization with dreams and castles of making an impact. So how many and what kind of reactions does he bear? A few samples:
Person one (Age > 50) : "Oh so you are from IIM. Wonderful my kid is also aspiring for it. But he doesn't study. Why don't you guide him?"
Person two (Age - 35-40) : "OK. So you are from IIM. great. Welcome" The rest of it that remains unsaid and you see it through the eyes could be either "Ok. You snob. I'll show you what it is to be here" or "Ok. Here comes another one hee hee. Let me rub my hands a bit. Welcome to the slaughter" or "Hmm.. Another one. He'll surely rise faster than me and screw my next appraisal" etc etc
Person three (Age - Late 20s) : "Hi. Welcome hope you are able to prove yourself. Challenge."
Person four (He's himself from an IIM) : "Hey fucker. So what's up at the college." The unsaid part is, look at these youngsters, must have come at a salary higher than me. Whatever happened to batch parity."

Beyond this the usual team insecurities, the HR incompetencies, organizational practices have the capability to make it a nightmare. I am not contesting the fact that on this professional front things should be rosy. A person from IIM would usually take this on as a challenge. But why single him/her out? Why that need to ask him to prove an extra mindless point? Or is it his/her fault to earn more than his/her peers not from that background?

Alas, we all live in a rat race so maybe that's the reason.

But apart from this professional amusement what bothers me more as a person is the social aspect of it. Other day a friend of mine put it like this "IIM guys hang around in their own groups. They are supposed to have their own culture with its own values and attributes and behave accordingly. They are expected to be more intelligent and sophisticated blah blah blah". A few questions on this to this society that we live in.
What is this culture that you talk about? What are those attributes? Did we ask you to put us on a pedestal? Why should this culture be obliged to satisfy your expectations? Why should an individual be expected to live up to your expectations? Why the hell does an IIM come first before the person? Any answers? I doubt. People just love to eulogize to either excuse their own fears and incompetencies or they are just looking for a scapegoat to laugh at and prove some point.

I agree, they are respectable institutions. I know coz I've experienced what all they give to an individual. The qualities, the positives and the negatives. But trust me each one of our tribe (as people put it) would still prefer to be that self first than a mere IIM product. Why can't we be considered normal and be respected for what we are than what our tag is? There are n number of people who could be more competent and yet not get the recognition. So don't burden us by giving us recognition first and then either justify the act or pull down the individual so hard so that you can have a hearty laugh. Be just. Be fair. Be normal. Both for your own sake and for our sake.