Tollygunge

Tollygunge (Bengali: Ṭaligonj; nicknamed 'Mini Mumbai' or 'Mini Bombay') is a locality of South Kolkata, in West Bengal, India. It is known for being the center of Indian Bengali-language cinema, with filming locations used for other regional Indian films.

It is flanked by the Eastern Railway south suburban line to the north, Lake Gardens and Golf Green in the east, the Pashchim Putiari and Purba Putiari in the south and Behala in the west. The neighbourhood is served by Mahanayak Uttam Kumar metro station and Netaji metro station of Kolkata Metro.

Other prominent neighbourhoods in the area include Haridevpur, Kudghat, Ranikuthi, Regent Park, Netaji Nagar and Bansdroni.

In the 18th century, Tollygunge, then known as Rasa Pagla, was a jungle with European garden houses scattered throughout. The Europeans, living in the central areas of old Calcutta, had a craze for villas far out in the sleepy villages, which were emerging as suburbs. It was renamed after Colonel William Tolly, who made the dead Adi Ganga channel navigable in 1774. Tipu Sultan's sons settled down in the area after the Vellore Mutiny in 1806. The British extended their patronage to Tollygunge Club and Tollygunge Golf Club in the 19th century.

In 1888, Ballygunge and Tollygunge formed a common thana when 25 new Police Section Houses were set up. In 1889, the suburbs of Calcutta were divided among 4 municipalities. While a portion of Tollygunge formed the South Suburban Municipality, northern Tollygunge which was part of the earlier Suburban Municipality was made one of the 'added area wards' of Kolkata Municipal Corporation. In 1951, the southern part of Tollygunge was added to Calcutta.

Around 1921, Kolkata Municipal Corporation made efforts in certain areas, and that included Ballygunge-Tollygunge, to widen roads and add sewerage, water supply and other civic benefits.

With the partition of Bengal, "millions of refugees poured in from erstwhile East Pakistan... hundreds of 'refugee colonies' sprang up almost overnight all across the city and occupied all vacant land in the fringe areas. Here the refugees built their very own type of settlement, bearing some reflection of the village set-up of their lost homes... the refugees had taken command of adjoining areas such as Tollyganj and transformed them into a very different environment." The influx of refugees occurred in several spurts between 1947 and 1971. Only a small part of the influx stayed in the government transit camps and the overwhelming majority settled in squatters' colonies along the eastern fringes of the city, starting from Barrackpore in the north, through Dumdum to Jadavpur, Tollygunge and Behala, down to Sonarpur in the south. The massive influx had a major demographic, cultural, economic and political impact on the city.

There is a small red-light district is located near Prince Anwar Shah Road.