'A hodgepodge of hash, yoga and LSD'

On the eve of his last ever gig in Europe, sitar giant Ravi Shankar tells John O'Mahony why the 60s got India wrong, how his daughters give him hope - and why Hendrix annoyed him

If Ravi Shankar has one abiding memory of the Monterey pop festival - which took place in the heady summer of 1967, at the height of his notoriety as the sitar-playing guru to the stars - it is of unfortunate scheduling. Slated to appear before him were Jefferson Airplane, a band whose blues-inflected barrage of pulsating sound couldn't have clashed more with his own karmic composure. And right after him was one Jimi Hendrix, then still a relative unknown, but with a growing reputation for ferocious, turbo-charged guitar solos.

"I thought he was fantastic, but so very loud," Shankar says now, shaking his head. "And then he would do that thing with his instrument when he would open up a can of gasoline and burn his guitar. People went gaga for it; they loved it. But for me, the burning of the guitar was the greatest sacrilege possible. I just ran out of there. I told them that even if I had to pay some kind of compensation to get out of playing the festival, I just couldn't do it." The organisers' solution was to give Shankar his own stage for an altogether more civilised afternoon performance of assorted ragas, during which Hendrix sat quietly in the front row.

This predicament highlights what has to be one of the most extraordinary and often bizarre career trajectories of any living musician. Now a venerable 88, Shankar is finally saying farewell to Europe with a tour that culminates at the Barbican in London tonight, where he will perform a selection of specially chosen ragas with his daughter, Anoushka, also a sitar player. Much of the tour had to be cancelled due to a stomach virus - but Shankar has now been declared fit and ready to play. "My mind, musically ... in every sense I feel much better than ever before," he says. "But it is the body that sometimes lets me down."

Meeting Shankar, it's difficult to believe that this diminutive, deferential man has been such a counterculture luminary. His greeting comes in the form of a namaskar, a gracious supplicant bow, and his speech is pitched just above a gentle whisper.

"I really hope I can make a little sense for you," he says, pleading jetlag brought on by the long journey from his adoptive home in southern California.

"I don't adjust quite the way I used to."

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