This article offers an interconnected, grounded understanding of how two Gandhian endeavours in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India, make us rethink the notion of "education" in terms of civic and communal engagement. Drawing on local, vernacular ways of living, learning, being, reasoning, and believing--in this case Gujarati--I show how these endeavours engage in civically minded projects in the wake of two devastating events in the city, namely a massive earthquake in 2001 and horrendous Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002. The exploration is intended to not only move us all toward rethinking traditional notions of "education," but toward offering insights into how critical practice functions in non-Western contexts.