Saad Haroon is 33 years old and a graduate of the University of Massachusetts. He recently quit his day job to to write Pakistan's first late night political satire show.

Here he tells Saima Mir-Bajwa about Pakistan, satire, and making fun of the mullahs...

People often ask me what it’s like being a comedian in a country as dangerous as Pakistan. My answer is “it’s complicated”.

In the last 24 hours, 24 people have lost their lives in Karachi. But in the small space that is my life I’ve had three call-ups for comedy shows. For those of us not killing, or being killed in Karachi, life goes on. We have become immune to the crippling fear, and the days are just divided into good and bad.

I’ve been writing and performing political satire since I was 23. It all started in 2002 when I returned home after finishing my studies in the US. Things were really dark and depressing here in Pakistan. Inspired to make a change, have fun, and kill the boredom, I set up and trained a comedy improv group called Black Fish. There was no grand plan or calculated move, it was just something to make people happy and to fulfil the basic human need of laughter. We rented a basement, spread the word, and within weeks we had a hit show on our hands! The show was a heady mix of political satire, cultural piss-taking, and a general sending up of society. It was the first time Pakistani audiences had seen anything like it and they lapped it up. We in turn felt like superheroes.

After Black Fish my writing partner and I started doing more television and scripted comedy. The arrival of social networking sites and Youtube put us on the map and made us an internet phenomenon.

Nine years on and making people laugh in a country where almost everyone owns a gun is getting more and more dangerous. But political satire and stand-up are my true passion and i've quit my day job to work on Pakistan’s first late night comedy sketch show. But here, writers are either starving or working on Urdu dramas. And recent events have got me wondering how long I can keep mocking the establishment and getting away with it. My last video, a spoof of Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman called Burka Woman, has had the threats pouring in.

But for me worse than the death threats are the other fundamentalists out there. I had an email from a girl congratulating me on Burka Woman and telling me she subscribed to 50 websites on the dangers of Islamisation. Terrorists might hijack planes but some people are much more dangerous - they hijack your religion.

Pakistan has become a ‘them’ and ‘us’ culture and lately it’s like the ‘them’ has stifled all the conversation.

It saddens me that people were offended by the video. In Pakistan there is an elephant in every room, and the last thing you need is an offended elephant looking for an excuse to trample over you.

As different people try to commandeer the discourse about the video and other people try to wrestle it back, Burka Woman ends up being shocking, controversial, and a topic of debate when all it was meant to be was funny. But the real story about me should be that finally a video from Pakistan has gone viral.

But should I really be complaining? The shock and the controversy have served me well. I’ve done TV shows, solo stand-up, and started improv troupes, and all it really took to bring me international fame was one good threat. Silly Salman Rushdie, writing all those books, the future is only 3 minutes long!

Burka Woman lyrics:

Burka woman, in your black sheet
Burka woman, with your sexy feet
Burka woman

My love for you it grows
Every time I see you toes
-nail polish- *rowrrr*

Burka woman, with your kajul eyes
Burka woman, my mystery prize
Burka woman

I go home an practice flirtin'
With my drawing room curtain
-modesty- *rowrr*

Burka woman, I love you still
Come on and give me a thrill
Show me your left nostril

Burka woman, don’t act estranged
Burka woman, its all arranged
Don’t you know I came to see your daddy-ee

I cant find you, turn on the light
Don’t be scared baby, it's our wedding night

Burka woman, devoid of sin
Burka woman, my desi penguin
Burka woman

You're the night and im a star
Throw this star like a sexy ninja
I guess i wont put on the moves
With your values you will refuse

But wait, what do i see?
Is she texting back to me?
Yaa, oh she’s texting back to me
Woah she’s texting back to me

Oh burka woman!