Palkon ki Chaaon Mein - dead or not

Palkon ki Chaaon Mein is a serial that reverts to the traditional older concept of how a widow would be treated, and one is not sure whether the serial makers wanted to play on the concept of emotion and tragedy rather than show something uplifting. The serial started out right with a young orphan girl Suman having been taken in by a family, and then she falling in love with the younger son Karan. And then she realizes that the mother of the family actually wanted to get her married to the elder son Karthik who also has a soft corner for Suman. It takes a fair number of episodes to get the mother to believe in the love story between Karan and Suman, and to convince everybody in the house that this marriage can happen.
However, soon it came about that due to a tragedy, Karan dies and Suman got injured. And that is when the serial started showing all the horrors that a widow faces, including the mother being convinced that Suman was responsible for the death of her son. Only Karthik defends her and is aghast at the treatment of Suman, and at the same time, there is some amount of suspense about whether Karan is still alive or not.