The sitar player who taught the world what a sitar is. Born in Varanasi in 1920, trained from his teens by Allauddin Khan at Maihar, and from the mid-1950s the principal cultural ambassador of Indian classical music to a West that had not previously been listening. The friendship and tutelage of George Harrison — Beatles, Monterey, Woodstock, the Concert for Bangladesh — gave him a stadium-rock visibility unprecedented for a classical musician of any tradition. Behind the popular fame sat the actual life's work: the deep ragas, the compositions for sitar and orchestra, the founding of music schools in Bombay and in Los Angeles, the half-century teaching position at the University of California, San Diego. Five Grammys. Three Padma honours. Father of Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones, both major artists in their own right. Died in San Diego, 11 December 2012.