I just successfully compiled and installed my kernel and then tried "make tags" command while being inside ~/git/kernels/staging directory:

$ make tags
make: getcwd: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target 'tags'. Stop.

$ cd; cd -

bash: cd: /home/dileep/git/kernels/staging: No such file or directory
$ cd git/kernels/staging

bash: cd: git/kernels/staging: No such file or directory

Now there is no any "staging" directory inside ~/git/kernels. Have I lost my 1 GB of kernel source code?