Thank you for your input on the pins/ init sequence. I was trying a different set of pins/init sequence thinking the controller was a different one. There doesnt seem to be much information in aliexpress. Is there any documentation somewhere that I can use to understand on how this init sequence needs to be formatted and significance of the values? I know what -1, -2 and -3 mean, but not sure about the hex and int values in sequence.
BTW, I would also like to know how to manipulate 0x36 register.