The sitar is a lot easier than the sarod - it was designed as a kind of dumbed-down classical instrument, with the movable frets taking the hard work out of finding the notes of the raga. A sarod is like playing high up on the violin all the time.

But if you aren't going to get seriously into Indian classical music, you might be better off with the sitar's folk ancestor, the veena/vina. It has fixed frets, like a number of related instruments from central Asia.

http://www.jas-musicals.com/sectrad/South-Indian-Veena.asp

The sound is quite similar to a sitar, except you can't do microtonality as easily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mghqQSkbuZw

And it can be used as a classical instrument if you work at it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tngyk6qLv88