Like a safe acid trip!
Love tge tune, but I'm required by law, I think, to like anything with electric sitar. I sure act like it.

...a sampler like the Emulator II everyone was using back then. That was produced by David Stewart (Eurythmics), and it's really heavy on the recording technology (LinnDrum, tons of keyboards). You can pretty much date that song to 1985-86 based just on the keyboard sounds and production alone.

I always thought it was a keyboard, because I have an old UltraProteus module with the entire E-II/E-III sample library burned into ROM. The E-II sitar is one of the more clichéd late '80s synth sounds. It's wild hearing that track--I forgot how the machines just dominated records at the time...never would have thought I'd hear a LinnDrum on a Tom Petty record!

I had both a Mirage, then later, the Akai 12 bit, with the hard drive.
Had sitar samples for both of those.
But, that is clearly an electric sitar not a Indian style one. Most of the samples in those days were of the genuine article. Plus, it just sounds like plucked and not triggered.
Fun Fact: it was Dave who played the e-sitar on the record.