title: Unexpected behavior of 'git rm'
body: <p>Given a Git repository and a committed file <code>a</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I remove the file with an O/S command: <code>$ rm a</code></p>
  
  <p>Calling <code>git status</code> returns:</p>
  
  <pre><code>On branch master
  Changes not staged for commit:
    (use "git add/rm &lt;file&gt;..." to update what will be committed)
    (use "git checkout -- &lt;file&gt;..." to discard changes in working directory)
  
          deleted:    a
  
  no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Next, I'm calling <code>git rm</code> followed by <code>git status</code> which yields:</p>
  
  <pre><code>On branch master
  Changes to be committed:
    (use "git reset HEAD &lt;file&gt;..." to unstage)
  
          deleted:    a
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Git's man pages description of the command <code>git rm</code>:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Remove files from the index, or from the working tree and the index.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>From my understanding, what happened in the above command sequence is that <code>git rm</code> <em>put</em> the change of deleting the file <em>into</em> the staging area (which I'm using synonymously with <em>index</em>), instead of <em>removing</em> something from it.</p>
  
  <p>What is my misconception here?</p>