Today, you decide our take on Nikita Shamdasani with a crowdsourced profile.

by Crowd | The Minor

Vote on Location

#1) CHAPEL HILL, NC–

#2) CARRBORO, NC–

#3) ORANGE COUNTY, NC–

Vote on the First Paragraph

Option #1) An experienced student government executive branch leader, Nikita Shamdasani knows that things can be changed for the better.

Option #2) A former debater, Nikita Shamdasani has always been vocal about issues on campus.

Option #3) February is a cruel month for an election. The air can turn icy with little warning. Each candidate lives for another breath, but the life-giving air also numbs, and no one feels much like moving. Sunlight wanes. Nikita Shamdasani, in the February twilight, in the middle of the frozen hell we call running for student body president, is breathing, getting colder.

Vote on the Second Paragraph

Option #1) Utilizing a crowdsourcing platform called ‘Neighborland,’ Shamdasani hopes to reconfigure the way we think about student government. She says that new technology can help put the focus back where it belongs–on students and their ideas.

Option #2) The room falls silent upon her entry. In a few minutes, bastard crows emerge from the cold shadows. They are hungry for carrion. Will she feed them? They peck at her platform, her latest interview, her last debate performance in search of sustenance. They will devour scraps as meager as a stilted introduction, or failure to memorize a statistic that, to Powell, is a note in a bedtime lullaby. But sleep is the cousin of death, and so no one is resting now. The bastard crows are too close–watching with flat, hungry eyes–ready to fill their bellies with dead remains. Democracy has its fair share of food for them.

Option #3) “I want a more transparent and open student government,” she said. “I know we can do better about listening and talking with students. That’s why my platform is focused on Neighborland. We’re opening up a new channel to student ideas.”

Vote on the Third Paragraph (You can fill in the blanks with any word you want!)

Option #1) Shamdasani said she envisions a student government that stands for ______.

Option #2) Shamdasani, a junior from Fayetteville, NC, said she has always valued _______ and it will be a vital part of her administration. “I think everyone knows I’m a _______ kind of person and I really care about _________. Those values guided my decision to invest in Neighborland during this campaign.”

Option #3) “It is well-known that an automaton once existed, which was so constructed that it could counter any move of a chess-player with a counter-move, and thereby assure itself of victory in the match,” Shamdasani said. “A puppet in Turkish attire, water-pipe in mouth, sat before the chessboard, which rested on a broad table. Through a system of mirrors, the illusion was created that this table was transparent from all sides. In truth, a hunchbacked dwarf who was a master chess-player sat inside, controlling the hands of the puppet with strings. One can envision a corresponding object to this apparatus. The puppet called ‘________’ is always supposed to win. It can do this with no further ado against any opponent, so long as it employs the services of  ‘______,’ which as everyone knows is small and ugly and must be kept out of sight.”

Vote on the Final Paragraph

Option #1) Shamdasani said on her first day in office she would send the Neighborland link to the other candidates, to allow them to populate it with ideas for reform.

Option #2) Underneath the layers that she puts on in the cold, Shamdasani is what you would expect. A politician. Just as hungry as the crows, but hungry for the flesh of the living. It is a hunger that’s hard to recognize under the layers, but it is what drives her, drives her out into the winter air. By now, she has spent so much time in the cold that, even in solitude, in the warmth of her home, she feels a chill, and so she keeps the layers on. Even she may not recognize the hunger anymore. Hers will be the only flesh left to feed it.

Option #3) Using the slogan “Your Carolina,” Shamdasani says she hopes her administration will be one that advocates for students.