SriLanka, Sept. 10 -- While many old pendulum clocks are being discarded, Jayashantha Perera is quietly giving them another chance to tick.

A Senior Programme Producer in the Sports Division of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, Perera has turned the restoration of traditional pendulum wall clocks, popularly known as Batta clocks, into an absorbing hobby. In several rooms of his home in Wennappuwa, around 100 clocks of different shapes, sizes, origins and eras hang on the walls, each carrying a small piece of mechanical history.

Jayashantha's fascination began in childhood. In 1965, his father brought home an EKCO pendulum wall clock made in Germany. The clock stayed with him, and decades later it became the starting point of an u...