Rishabh Sharma scoops up a forkful of sesame chicken and fried rice. He does not normally eat in Jasmine, the Asian eatery in Stony Brook University's Wang Center, but he likes the atmosphere, the décor and the overall feel of the place.

That doesn't mean Rishabh will be eating Jasmine's Indian food.

"It's not the same as back home," he says, looking up from his tray over his square, red-framed glasses. His favorite dish is Pav Bhaji: mashed mixed vegetables and Indian spices served with a roll or bun. He knows it as "mommy food."

Rishabh, a dark-haired 20-year-old, grew up in New Delhi, India, the youngest of four children and the only son in an upper class Hindu family. A business major with a minor in applied mathematical statistics, he is one of Stony Brook's 1,155 current international undergraduate students - a group that, according to the school’s website, comprises seven percent of all undergraduates.

Stony Brook is more than 7,000 miles from New Delhi, India, and prior to college, Rishabh did not have much practice being away from home. Early in his undergraduate career, he became so homesick that he was unable to keep up with his studies in engineering and had to swap majors.

"I’m not the Indian stereotype of genius," Rishabh, now a junior, says.

In order to perform well, he needed the support system of his family, with whom he is quite close. When Rishabh’s family took him to the airport to make his first trip to Stony Brook at the beginning of freshman year, he and his mother cried. Before getting on the plane, Rishabh bent down and touched his father's sneakered feet - a sign of respect - to receive his blessings for good luck and a good life.

"Whatever I am or I hope to be is because of them," Rishabh says. As he nods his head, the sunlight streaming in through Jasmine's large windows bounces off the large, square diamond stud in his left ear.

Once he arrived in New York, Rishabh didn't get the support he needed at Stony Brook the way he did in India – despite calling home twice a day. It was a drastic transition for him, he said, and a far cry from the days when he was always with at least one of his parents.

During the summer after his senior year in high school, Rishabh had his first taste of independence. He visited Vaishno Devi, a holy Hindu temple in Kashmir dedicated to the mother goddess, Shakti. The temple sits in a small cave in the Trikuta Hills, which are surrounded at the base by a town called Katra. Inside the cave, security guards keep watch of holy relics, among them a small stone that has on it the image of a Hindu goddess. This adventure lasted three days, a length of time that pales in comparison to the number of days he now spends abroad each semester.

Rishabh takes another mouthful of sesame chicken – a half a world away from home and his memories – and he knows he's changed.

His accent is no longer as thick, but that's not all that's different, he says. He now doesn’t need to rely on translation as much as he used to when he thought only in Hindi. After two and a half years on Long Island, his English sounds more natural because he can now think in both languages.

Rishabh's speech still shows some signs of his foreign upbringing, but he doesn't mind. He is proud of the food, social life, and traditions that make his country unique.

One cultural difference in particular Rishabh is proud of is the value his people put in the institution of marriage, which ends roughly 50 percent of the time in divorce in the United States.

"Divorce is low because an Indian wedding is more valuable," he says. Rishabh's favorite part of the five or six-day ritual is the ring ceremony, which he says demonstrates the love the bride and groom have for one another. The rings symbolize the commitment the couple is making and, once on their fingers, are connected to their hearts.

As much as he was enveloped by a rich Indian culture in his formative years, Rishabh was not sheltered from an American presence. On any given trip to a mall in Delhi, he shopped at popular American stores such as Nike, the Gap and Adidas.

Shopping aside, Rishabh has many nice things to say of his life back home, mostly about his family life and childhood. His dark eyes light up as he shares that he briefly kept a puppy in sixth grade, a black dog named 'Jack.'

"An Indian breed with an English name," he says, and smiles.

Rishabh also tells of growing up with two older sisters to whom he felt comfortable talking about girlfriends with, and about having parents who didn't stop him or hold him back - as long as he finished all his schoolwork.

"I had to tell them where I was going, but they don't care as long as I keep my grades up," he says. While other relatives would ask where he was or what he was doing, he says, "They trusted me." Rishabh knocks on the wooden part of the table for emphasis.

When he returns to India on summer vacations, Rishabh has a similar relationship with his folks, but he says that now when he goes home he is treated like a king.

He explains that because he is not there much anymore, when he finally goes back home he gets anything he wants, including respect.

"I am a man now," he says.

Although Rishabh knows there are great advantages to being in New York, such as being able to do what he wants and live how he wants, he enjoys these returns home. He regrets that his family cannot pick him up over the weekend, as is the case with many students. He has to be responsible for his own laundry, and his own life.

Apart from this added responsibility that has changed his personal life, Long Island also has an impact on Rishabh's religious life. When he was home in Delhi he prayed often. But there are not many Hindu temples in the Stony Brook area, and Rishabh finds it difficult to be at the mercy of the Long Island Rail Road.

"When I was back home I would drive," he says, adding that in India he has been driving since eighth or ninth grade but never got his license.

"Who cares?" he says. "In India, laws are not followed so strictly." If a young boy is driving, nobody checks to see if he has a valid license. Rishabh says. They only take note if someone is "caught doing something wrong."

Without the freedom to drive here, Rishabh spends three nights a week working for the residential safety program. As a member of RSP, he sits at a desk in his residential building, feet away from his apartment next to the front door, and signs people into the building from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. During that time, he listens to music, watches videos on YouTube and does his homework.

"I get smarter everyday," he says. "I just feel it."

Once Rishabh graduates, he plans to move on from this job to a career in banking as a business analyst, someone who examines companies and advises the workers on how to be more efficient. He likes the work atmosphere in New York and hopes to work for a multinational corporation in a position that will allow him to go back and forth between America and India. In this way, he is only halfway fulfilling the prediction that he has heard so many times.

"They say once you start making money, you never go back," he says.

But Rishabh Sharma does not want to fit the average mold. He wants to be independent.

"I just want to make my life," he says. "I’m happy for what I am."