That is the queue Mullick and Tariq follow. With Sonejuhi Sinha's masterful editing, they could have given us a public service announcement about Edhi's many accomplishments, and we would be grateful for it. This material is so rich, that they could have developed a whole reality series from the hundred thousand human stories that have passed through his walls. Or they might have used the movie to vilify Pakistan, appeasing those liberals looking for the tyranny of religious patriarchy while enflaming the xenophobia among the conservatives who see nothing but savagery in skin color. Instead, they produce a profound, interwoven work of literary non-fiction, vérité, in the tradition of Truman Capote and Dave Eggers. This is the film that Edhi would have given us: for a few days, we calmly live among his people. Two in particular.

Asad: streetwise, solitary young man in his 20s. No knowledge of his own parents, he drove the streets night after night, hoping to die. Driving by Edhi's center, he spots a "Help Wanted" sign. So, he decides to spend his final days caring for others. He tells us he has seen everything: suicides, murders, accidents. Lost children. Time and circumstance, he says, have been his teachers. Three years later, stewardship for others has distanced him from his own pains, allowing him an occasional smile as he wipes off beads of sweat off his face.

Little Omar is a boy of perhaps 10 years, running in every chance he gets. He bullies the other orphans with the force of a man ready to fight his destiny. He boasts about his strength against all pain, allowing life's sharp daggers the limited satisfaction of just a simple tear, a single drop of water down his cheek, and nothing more. Like an aging boxer, he wants you to hit him, just so that he can show his toughness. But, his exhausted wrinkly eyes and jarring language betray a life that has seen more in a decade than most of us would want to be near in a lifetime. As the film unfolds, he reveals more of himself, sometimes over fights for sandals. If anything, he shows us that he is just a little kid in a big world.